As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world.

The research project MAXCAP: Maximizing the integration capacity of the European Union: Lessons and prospects for enlargement and beyond starts with a critical analysis of the effects of the 2004-2007 enlargement on stability, democracy and prosperity of candidate countries, on the one hand, and the…

Through a comparative analysis of participation in outdoor recreation in Europe, this project seeks to investigate how social inequalities are embodied.

Tapping into a combination of court documents, urban statutes, material artefacts, health guides and treatises, Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe offers a unique perspective on how premodern public authorities tried to create a clean, healthy environment.

To assess the impact of illicit firearms trafficking on gun violence, this research looks at the scope, characteristics and contexts of firearm violence, and also the scope and nature of firearms trafficking in Europe since the new millennium. Nils Duquet, Dennis Vanden Auweele and Marieke Liem created…

How are night spaces imagined, produced, experienced and narrated by migrant communities in Europe? This research project considers this question in eight European cities: Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cork, Galway, Lisbon, London, Rotterdam. Authorities have historically wrestled with the issue of night-time…

Call for Papers for the conference Relocating Governance in Asia: state and society in South- and Southeast Asia, c. 1800-2000, Leiden University, 22-24 January 2020.

The double issue of kritisk etnografi – Swedish Journal of Anthropology, has a question: Is Europe skilling for sustainable food? The two guest editors, Professor Maris Boyd Gillette from the University of Gothenburg and Professor Cristina Grasseni from Leiden University, have convened an esteemed…

On 28 January 2021, Dorine Verheij defended her thesis 'Credit rating agency liability in Europe'. THe doctoral research was supervised by Prof. M. Haentjens and Prof. A.G. Castermans.

This collection of essays is the first to compare the emergence and development of these different types of regional identities.

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

Artificial intelligence could help make the work of public sector organisations, professionals, policy- and decision makers more effective, more efficient, and ideally could make it more rationalised and evidence-based.

Through a lens that examines the intersection of ageing, gender, class, and migration, this project addresses the “care deficit” in European countries and the employment of migrant women from Latin America to fill this deficit.

Through a lens that examines the intersection of ageing, gender, class, and migration, this project addresses the 'care deficit' in European countries and the employment of migrant women from Latin America to fill this deficit.

Growing health inequalities, rising healthcare costs, an ageing population and a shortage of healthcare personnel are just a few of the many challenges healthcare faces, in the Netherlands and internationally. To tackle these challenges an interdisciplinary approach is required by combining knowledge…

Agriculture is among the most vulnerable sectors to climate change and poorer countries face the most severe difficulties. Coffee farmers in Central America, for instance, are facing multiple and mutually reinforcing crises, including price shocks, outbreaks of pests and diseases, migration, and farm…

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is one of seven institutes housed within the Faculty of Humanities.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

The research group Diplomacy and Global Affairs focuses on international diplomacy, international organisation, global, transnational, multi-level and comparative governance. Among key research topics are the European Union and the United Nations, EU current enlargement policy, rule of law in the EU,…

Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) asks how international organisations can be compelled to comply with respect human rights. She finds that this is done through ‘pluralist accountability’: external third parties such as courts, NGOs, or regional organisations holding international…

This edited volume suggests promising new avenues of research in analyzing coalition politics. Written by a group of leading scholars, the book clarifies a number of concepts too often taken for granted in the existing literature, performs theoretically-driven and methodologically novel comparative…

What forms does religiosity take among Muslims in Europe today? How are answers to the question of what it means to be a Muslim in Europe reached in institutions of Islamic higher education, Muslim student organizations, and women’s organizations? What is the relation between the individual and religious…

In this journal article, Dr. Joris Larik and Dr. Richard Ponzio put forward a broad-based pandemic recovery agenda that goes hand in hand with institutional reforms at the global level.

Emerging from the first wave relatively unscarred to an increase in infections. This research analyses the response from the Bulgarian government to Covid-19.

Leiden Asia Centres

On 15 February 2024, Alexandros Sarris defended the thesis 'International Law and Governance of the Arctic in an Era of Climate Change'. The doctoral research was supervised by Nico Schrijver and Freya Baetens.

This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular.

Jan Aart Scholte, Professor Global Transformations and Governance Challenges, is a co-author of this book that offers the first full comparative study of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance.

Leiden University’s new ‘Europe Hub’ is an interdisciplinary platform that showcases the university’s research and teaching expertise and capacities on Europe’s societal and governance challenges.

Bringing together the most current research on the relationship between crime and gender in the West between 1600 and 1914, this authoritative volume places female criminality within its everyday context.

The use of increasingly large and diverse datasets to guide urban climate action has implications for how, and by whom, local governments are held accountable.

In the Brill series Intersections a new volume has been published, entitled Ronsard and Du Bartas in Early Modern Europe.

The Politics and Governance department of the Institute of Public Administration focuses on the complex interaction between politics and governance. Our research explores contemporary issues such as the impact of global crises, populism, and polarisation at various levels of government.

This article by Honorata Mazepus and Florian van Leeuwen in the journal Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions looks at how evaluations of authorities were influenced by four aspects of a governmental response to a hypothetical disaster.

Project TARGET aims to improve our understanding of gun violence in Europe and the relationship between gun violence and firearms trafficking.

As of 1 January 2024, Gerrard Boot, Professor of Employment Law, has been appointed to act as deputy justice in the Central Appeals Tribunal.

Subproject of

In the Governance of Sustainability programme students will learn to become a future ‘change agents’ who can develop and inform governance solutions to complex environmental sustainability challenges.

Why, then, do governments choose to disclose intelligence and what factors shape how they do so?

Are you eager to learn how to shape governance solutions to complex environmental challenges? Are you passionate about fostering a more inclusive, just and sustainable world? Then this master’s is the right fit for you.

Arco Timmermans, professor by special appointment in Public Affairs at the Institute of Public Administration, is co-editor of this book focused on comparing engagements in policy advisory systems.

The research group Cyber Security Governance will provide cutting-edge academic research in the domain of cyber, where modern technology interacts with traditional concepts such as governance, sovereignty, law-enforcement, international relations and conflict.

With both national and international companies operating in the market, the expansion of global platform capitalism raises concerns and critique. To counter a perceived erosion of local authority, various countries, particularly in Europe, have introduced anti-trust legislation against such BigTech…

This article investigates the sources of legitimacy in multistakeholderism as a major alternative approach to intergovernmental global governance.