On 8 November, Jordi Wiersma defended the thesis 'Democratie, deugden, docentschap: de docent als gids in de democratie'. The doctoral research was supervised by Andreas Kinneging and Paul van Geest.

In Democratie en totalitarisme zijn de invloedrijkste opstellen van de Franse denker Claude Lefort samengebracht. Lefort laat overtuigend zien dat de kwetsbaarheid van de democratie juist ook haar kracht is. Voor democratie is essentieel dat de macht als ‘lege plaats’ verschijnt. Zij mag slechts tijdelijk…

Anchrit Wille, Associate Professor at Leiden University's Institute of Public Administration, wrote together with Mark Bovens, Professor of Public Administration at the Utrecht University School of Governance the book“Diploma Democracy”. The Economist wrote a review “This fascinating book shows that…

China wordt steeds assertiever in zijn relaties met andere landen, maar achter dit beeld gaat een opmerkelijk diverse maatschappij en politieke realiteit schuil die tal van aanknopingspunten biedt voor samenwerking en verdere integratie van China in de wereld. In China een gids voor de 21e eeuw past…

Met de val van Balkenende IV laait de discussie over het functioneren van politieke partijen binnen ons democratisch bestel weer op. Opgeblazen ego’s, overambitieuze politici en partijpolitieke machtspelletjes zouden echte democratie in de weg staan. Maar die discussie is niet nieuw.

Tim Koopmans is one of the great minds in the history of Dutch and European legal scholarship. He taught law as a professor in Leiden and other universities, among which Ghent, Cambridge, Utrecht. He practiced it as a judge in the European Court of Justice and Advocate-General in the Dutch Supreme Court,…

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) is to investigate whether comments made by 'Forum voor Democratie' MP Gideon van Meijeren about going to parliament to protest are punishable. How should the political centre in The Hague respond?

Below you will find an overview of all PRE-Classes provided by the various programmes of Leiden University. For each section, you can find a description of the content and more specific information about the requirements for participation in the Class.

The ‘spreidingswet’ (dispersal law) has been passed by Dutch Senate and will take effect on 1 February. In the municipality of Westland, however, a majority in the council is unwilling to create 700 extra reception places.

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.

Today is the general election in the Netherlands – although the polling stations have actually been open for two days already because of the coronavirus restrictions. Leiden researchers and students are involved in all manner of ways, and are analysing the campaigns and possible results.

Below are some of the scholarly works published within the context of the Institutions for Conflict Resolution programme.

With the childcare benefits scandal in the Netherlands, certain interests in society were hidden for long to politics and governance. With the farmers’ protests, on the other hand, the major economic and political interests at stake were hidden for long to society. In her inaugural lecture on 16 September,…