On 7 November 2018, Catherine Harwood defended her thesis 'Navigating Between Principle and Pragmatism: The Roles and Functions of Atrocity-Related United Nations Commissions of Inquiry in the International Legal Order'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. L.J. Van den Herik and Prof.…

Can you imagine a radically different world? In our times dominated by neoliberal capitalism, we seem to lack not only viable alternatives, but also the capacity to envision anything outside of the status quo.

For the second time in six months, Hans-Martien ten Napel has been invited to write the opening essay for a series of international blog posts.

How do governments distribute resources across economic sectors during a crisis? And why do some sectors receive more than others? The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgency of these questions. In this paper, we explore the extent to which a political economy…

'After my BA International Studies I decided to do the MA International Relations, and that proved to be a good choice,' Mats Radeck (23, Trier, Germany) says. He is in the last phase of the MA, working on his thesis on

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

Wouter Veenendaal, a political scientist at Leiden University, is an analyst for the Freedom House report. Freedom House is an American non-profit organisation dedicated to democracy, political freedom and human rights. In short, the report describes the degree of freedom and the state of democracy…

The parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, scheduled for March 2017, are likely to result in a fragmented parliament and a complicated coalition formation process, according to Dutch political scientist Hans Vollaard (Leiden University).

PhD defence

This zine is an experimentation in layering and juxtaposition as bonding relations of care by Federico de Musso.

It is difficult to hold international organisations (IOs) accountable for human rights violations. Gisela Hirschmann (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University) introduces the concept of pluralist accountability, whereby third parties set the standards for IOs’ actions in relation to human rights,…

Political scientists Huib Pellikaan and Niels van Willigen (Leiden University) use and elaborate on the theoretical insights from game theory in order to understand nuclear security in changing environment. Now that the relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated and smaller nuclear states…

Around the world, there is a growing movement to decolonise university curricula, with both students and educators seeking to disrupt existing epistemic hierarchies within higher education. This research project aims to unravel what decolonising means in general and what it means for the International…

Speeches and speech acts have been crucial in settling the question at the centre of every political debate: who gets what, when and where?

The master’s in East Asian Studies, a specialisation within the master's of Asian Studies, combines an exceptional range of courses with advanced language training and outstanding resources and expertise.

Together with internationally esteemed colleagues, Léon Buskens has been awarded a HERA Joint Research Programme Grant for a research project entitled

This paper will address how digital affordances (Grasseni and Walter 2014) of the interactive documentary are an epistemological tool that shapes and fosters comparative reflections in collaborative ethnographic projects. To do so, I will analyse the process of planning and coding an i-doc (interactive…

On 12 April 2022 Alok Oak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project addresses the occurrence of political and ideological biased crimes in light of the recent migration influx in European countries.

In the light of the fragility of current liberal democracies, this dissertation aims to contribute to rethinking political order by reconstructing Hegel’s account in the Philosophy of Right.

The Centre for the Study of Political Parties and Representation (CSPPR) aims to serve as an interdisciplinary platform for scholars of Leiden University for research focusing on the historical and contemporary operation and functioning of political parties and political representation, with a particular…

On March 16 students and alumni of the Advanced LLM in European and International Human Rights Law were brought together in an online Zoom event organized by our programme coordinator, Mahshid Alizadeh, and head of the LLM, Rick Lawson.

Amy Strecker assesses the institutional framework for landscape protection, analyses the interplay between landscape and human rights, and links the etymology and theory of landscape with its articulation in law.

Politics, Culture and National Identities investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Few events have influenced our global order as intensely as the events of September 11, 2001.

Archaeolandscapes International is an educational and scientific not-for-profit organisation with the objective to promote non-destructive prospecting methods for archaeological investigations.

Does becoming a public sector employee change a person’s political beliefs, behaviors and interactions with the state? Do public teachers hold the same values as other professionals and the general Brazilian public?

Let’s get this out of the way: Hillary Clinton won the 26 September 2016 presidential candidates television debate. Handily.

On the 24th of June Hossein Pourbagheri successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

After an initial suggestion of a move toward Israel, India’s Prime Minister Modi has signaled a significant recalibration of his government’s engagement with the Middle East region. Now, India seems to be prioritising strong ties with the Gulf states.

Taking the changing landscape of international cyber security and cyber conflict as a point of departure, The Hague Program on International Cyber Security focuses on the various modes of governance that states and other actors can bring into play to deal with and shape the strategic changes and challenges…

The project will clarify that in the search for these new means the treatise On the sublime of ps.-Longinus played a crucial role. However, the project will also place the theatre performances in a broader social and political perspective. These public events and the theatre performances suggest that…

How has democracy’s decline affected law making processes, enabling powerful stakeholders’ influence while minimalizing the protection of public interest and the environment?

The MA in Politics, Society and Economy of Asia takes a social science approach to the study of one or more countries or regions in modern or contemporary Asia.

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Digital Activism’ by exploring some of the trends in social media activism and scholarship thereof. The authors ask to what extent this literature helps us understand Asian forms of online activism, which forms of activism have relatively done well, and…

This dissertation is a study of North Korean art as a site where politics, history, and culture meet.

Are you thinking about studying Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present? Learn more and watch the introduction video.