When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has…

What political factors affect the speed or duration of EU legislative decision-making?

Introducing five papers about of the impact of crises on the governance, decision-making, and institutional design of the Euro Area, political scientists Valerie D'Erman (University of Victoria, Canada), Paul Schure (University of Victoria, Canada) and Amy Verdun (Leiden University) summarise the 'lessons…

International Relations and European Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

How can we understand the implementation of EU policy and what challenges are involved?

The EU acts as one of the most powerful economic actors in the global economy, presents itself as the most successful integration project in recent history, and deploys one of the largest diplomatic services in the world.

The Master’s in European Union Studies at Leiden University offers students an opportunity to study the EU from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

A month after the event, we can say the inaugural lecture of Prof. Luuk van Middelaar on “The European Union and the politics of events”, on 23 September 2016, has obtained good coverage in the Dutch national media.

Interview with political scientist Hans Vollaard (Leiden University) about “Nexit” speculations, the strengths and weaknesses of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom, and the general attitude towards Europe in the Netherlands.

How do crises produce changes in specific European Union foreign policy areas, and how should we conceptualise these policy changes?

The researchers examine the Council of the European Union's voting behaviour between 2010 and 2021 and the impact of different independent variables.

This thesis examines the complexity of legislative decisions within the EU, with a specific focus on the Council of the EU.

On 27 September 2017 a new book by Prof. Luuk van Middelaar appeared, entitled The new politics of Europe. The book is at the same time a front line account of Europe’s recent crisis years – from monetary turmoil to tensions around Ukraine, from refugee crisis to Brexit – and an analysis of the Union’s…

Are you thinking about studying European Union Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

How to explain the apparent high success rates of the EU infringement procedures, which are the major tools for enforcing EU law, against the member states?

Madeleine O. Hosli, Professor of International Relations, wrote this book in which she analyses the complex relations between the European Union (EU) as a regional organization and the United Nations (UN) as an international, global governance institution.

The Team International Relations and European Studies addresses the interconnections and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic, security and culture from a multidisciplinary perspective rooted in the humanities. More specifically it is concerned with the study of international relations…

The coronacrisis makes painfully clear that a transboundary crisis requires a transboundary response. The European Union could play a key role, but that has not happened so far. Political scientist Amy Verdun (Leiden University) explains why.

Dr. Gruni published an article on the impact on sustainable development in the EU Common Commercial Policy of recent Opinion 2/15 CJEU on the Global Trade and Customs Journal.

This article presents a new dyadic approach to studying voting behaviour in the Council of the European Union.

The Center participates in East European Politics, one of the major political science journals focusing on the contemporary post-communist space.

The European Council and the European Commission have a similar role in agenda setting. Both place issues on the EU agenda. However, these institutions have distinct designs. They have different political attributes (the European Council has considerably more political authority) and information-processing…

The article examines how Southern European member states' newspapers portray European irregular migration governance.

This special issue of the Journal of European Policy presents results from the research on the European Union Enlargement and its Integration Capacity. The Journal of European Public Policy is one of the leading journals in this field.

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action.

What drives public agencies’ propensity to engage in more extensive practices and/or to initiate more far-reaching mechanisms of accountability than those mandated by law? In other words, what are the drivers of voluntary accountability?

Political scientists Joop van Holsteyn and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) find that the Dutch government is having a hard time coping with referendum outcomes in general, and ‘anti-European’ sentiments among voters in particular.

Madeleine O. Hosli & Jaroslaw Kantorowicz analyze EU states' foreign policy divergence at the UN General Debate, assessing if Lisbon Treaty reforms increased EU cohesion or if states maintain distinct positions.

This article studies the influence of framing on preferences for cooperation with the EU.

The Summer School ‘The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance’ will focus on a range of topics relevant to interactions between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) and the EU’s role within current patterns of global governance.

EU foreign policy has become increasingly politicised over the past years, amongst others as a consequence of the succession of crises. Crises may engender processes of crisis framing and contestation. This article focuses on how the policy demands being voiced in these processes of contestation are…

Eva Michaels & Monika Sus examine strategic autonomy in EU foreign policy, tracing evolution from the 1998 Saint-Malo Declaration to its current focus.

Eva Michaels & Monika Sus examines European Strategic Autonomy (ESA) as the EU’s response to the fragmentation of the Liberal International Order.

This project investigates the capacities of EU institutions to coordinate the responses of member states to critical events.

Are you thinking about studying European Politics and Society? Learn more and watch the programme presentation.

How can the problems in establishing a sustainable common security and defence mechanism for the EU be explained?