Conference

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

In 2025, GTGC co-organised with the City of The Hague and the Hague Humanity Hub a Just Peace Festival, a vibrant platform on the pressing global challenges of peace with justice. The festival involved a wide range of different activities, including dialogues, exhibitions, performances, film evenings,…

The Just Peace Dialogues were a set of meetings for public deliberation of key aspects of building peace in today’s world. The dialogues were held across seven days at the heart of the Just Peace Festival (16 - 22 June 2025).

From 1 August 2018, Alanna O'Malley was appointed as Chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, focusing on the ‘lesser-known actors’ of the UN: women, the youth, the agents of informal diplomatic networks within the UN and actors from the Global South. This Special Chair has been created…

War and peace studies. A topic that is more relevant than ever because of the war in Ukraine. In September, the MSc Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start a new track: War and Peace Studies. CSM’s Programme Director, Ernst Dijxhoorn, discusses the new track, how it was created and what students…

The War and Peace Studies track offers you a comprehensive understanding of the historical, theoretical, and practical dimensions of war and peace, while addressing the complex challenges of conflict and peacebuilding in the contemporary world.

This project maps the policy of ‘Paz Total’ (Total Peace) and ongoing peace negotiations between non-state armed groups and the government of Colombia under the presidency of Gustavo Petro (2022-2026).

On the brink of war, what influences decision makers to attack another country? Using innovative theoretical angles, Femke E. Bakker explores whether the basic assumptions of democratic peace theory are indeed correct. She stresses the microfoundations of conflict, questioning the assumptions on…

Teaching excellence is one of the core functions of the War, Peace and Justice (WPJ) research group. WPJ members engage in diverse forms of public engagement, but all share a commitment to education.

The specialisation Global Conflict in the Modern Era of the master’s in International Relations at Leiden University engages you with the scholarly debates about global conflict today and in the recent past.

Conceptualizing ceasefires as bargaining instruments challenges established ideas about the processes that lead up to conflict settlement, and about war re-emergence, with important implications for our understanding of war and peace.

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

The specialization Peace, Justice and Development at Leiden University examines the legislation that governs international relations in a global society.

This volume discusses practices of memory in early modern Europe.

The War, Peace, and Justice (WPJ) research group brings together leading social scientists, researchers, teachers, and both current and former leaders and practitioners to explore cutting-edge issues in war, conflict, peace, and justice.

The project explores the role of modernization theory in the development of two foreign and domestic service programs: the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA).

The early modern and modern Europeanists at the Leiden Institute of History approach the past from comparative and transnational perspectives, frequently placing the history of our continent in global contexts. Our research covers the geographical and thematic breadth of Europe since ca. 1500, with…

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda arising from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has reached a critical juncture in its short 20-year history. Despite comprising ten resolutions designed to bolster the agenda and expand its scope and normative power, serious challenges to the…

Tom Buitelaar assesses how 'agency' is addressed in peacekeeping studies and identifies gaps.

In this article, Jasmijn Boeken, explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere.

The Leiden Institute of History approaches early modern and modern European history from comparative and transnational perspectives.

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970

Onderzoek van de onderzoeksgroep 'War, Peace and Justice'

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.

Are you thinking about studying Crisis and Security Management: War and Peace Studies? Learn more and watch the videos.

These courses deal with all language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary are discussed thoroughly.

Law and peace in the work of Hans Kelsen. A re-evaluation of Kelsen’s legal philosophy: legal pacifism as tacit meaning of his Pure Theory of Law

How is it possible that people kill each other? And above all: how is it possible that people who are able to peacefully live with each other at one moment, can kill each other at another one?

Assembling State, Space and Society on the Urban Margins in Morocco

This series of publications brings together new material on wellconsidered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies.

What does it mean to perceive smell? This question fascinated poets and playwrights of the early modern period (ca. 1500–1700): their work abounds in references to and evocations of smell sensation and of specific scents. POEM maps the ways in which early modern writers put the language of smell – or…

In the specialisation in Modern Languages you will explore the structure, acquisition, history and use of one or more of these five languages in depth: Chinese, English, French, German and/or Italian.

During the master’s programme in Modern Dutch Literature at Leiden University you will learn to scientifically analyse literary texts, as well as other Dutch cultural texts, such as those found in hiphop songs and diaries.

The master's programme in Modern European Philosophy at Leiden University focuses on continental philosophy ranging from German Idealism and Phenomenology via Deconstruction and Poststructuralism through 21st century developments in the field. It explores different approaches to thinking in a critical…

How are new drugs developed? This question is central to the Minor Modern Drug Discovery (MDD), which covers the entire trajectory from disease to drug molecule and vice versa. The various research groups involved offer a complementary and interdisciplinary perspective by connecting the diverse subjects…

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

We know that armed conflict breeds conflict. We also know the political, economic and demographic factors that inform this repetition of conflict. But we do not understand why accumulated conflict risk factors sometimes do and other times do not pay out in more violence. What if we go beyond macro structural…

This project focuses on the study of Neanderthal and early modern human behavior, primarily on the basis of stone tools, fauna and spatial patterns

This synthesis brings together strands developed in the four studies, sets out memories of the Revolt and presents the Low Countries as a case study.

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands?

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University. AMT focuses on those areas where there are clear strengths or exciting new developments ahead, bundled into five them…

Lecture

Malte Riemann examines the evolution of the mercenary concept. He suggests that notion of mercenary emerged in 19th-century Europe.

Providing a valuable overview of regionalism throughout the entire continent, Regionalism in Modern Europe combines both geographical and thematic approaches to examine the origins and development of regional movements and identities in Europe from 1890 to the present.