The fact-checking initiative Nieuwscheckers has won the Dutch round of the European Citizens Award. This prize is awarded annually to projects and initiatives that deliver an exceptional performance within the EU.

Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007. In 2011, the European Commission announced these Member States’ readiness to fully apply the Schengen rules and lift controls at the internal borders with other Member States. However, that decision has to be taken by the Council with unanimity. A number of…

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…

Dr. Jelena Belic and Dr. Tom Theuns have each been awarded XS grants from the NWO to develop innovative lines of research. Dr. Belic’s project examines distinctive ways in which the deployment of digital technologies interferes with freedom, while Dr. Theuns explores the ideological tensions between…

‘Who will succeed Frans Timmermans in Brussels?’ is the title of the article in Dutch financial newspaper Financieele Dagblad (FD). Various candidates have been reviewed and all are contenders. But a female candidate may still have an advantage, believes Luuk van Middelaar, Professor of Foundations…

On 15 April 2016, the All-European Final of the ELMC took place at the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg. Emma Gheorghiu, a student on the Advanced LL.M. in European and International Business Law at Leiden Law School, took home the trophy for the prestigious award for best Advocate General.

This dissertation focuses on the production and consumption of a mediation show in China that collaborates with the local Justice Bureau and broadcasts on an entertainment channel—exploring answers to questions raised from the mentioned entertainisation, social and political, and cultural issues.

In February 2014, the Swiss voting population accepted a constitutional initiative that aims at limiting migration through quota and, in the field of employment, national preference.

Schuurman examines how Russia is escalating its covert operations against European countries.

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,…

How is Indian foreign policy made? This special issue of the journal India Review, edited by political scientists Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) and Avinash Paliwal (SOAS University of London) features a number of interesting case studies that bridge the gap between Foreign Policy Analysis and India’s…

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).

Political scientists Tom van der Meer, Lisa Janssen (University of Amsterdam) and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) analyse polls presented by the main polling agencies in the Netherlands, as well as micro-level panel data. They reach three main conclusions. First, vote intention polls in the Netherlands…

It is often claimed that social media can contribute to democratic decision-making by bringing politicians and citizens into dialogue with one another. But is this potential always realised, and how? Most researchers look at politicians and their online communication strategies. In this New Media &…

Ries Kamphof conducted research into European sustainability policies; his findings are that the European Committee very rarely uses her authority. ‘The member states are very protective when it comes to taking action to protect the climate.’ PhD ceremony on 22 November 2018.

The increase in the European Union's executive powers in the areas of economic and financial governance has thrown into sharp relief the challenges of EU law in constituting, framing, and constraining the decision-making processes and political choices that have hitherto supported European integration.…

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

Leiden University has seen another successful season of the European Law Moot Court Competition come to an end.

The smallness of Suriname, according to political scientist Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden University), strongly affects and shapes the nature of democracy in the country. On the one hand, clientelism ensures that members of each ethnic group included in power-sharing arrangements have access to state resources…

How can the support for a collaborative approach to global challenges be increased, in times when international organisations’ capacity to act is under threat? Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) and Cornelia Ulbert (University of Duisburg-Essen) suggest a number of options.

How to explain variation in the extent to which parliamentary voting behaviour follows the government–opposition divide? Party Politics article by Tom Louwerse et al.

Vasiliki Kosta presented her research on ‘The EU fundamental right to freedom of the arts and sciences: exploring the limits on the commercialisation of academia' at the Maastricht Centre for European Law on 28 February 2023. The seminar was convened by Dr Annalisa Volpato, and Dr Vigjilenza Abazi acted…

Together with College of Europe Professors Sieglinde Gstöhl and Simon Schunz, Joris Larik edited an interdisciplinary special issue for the Journal of European Integration on the theme 'The European Union and the Governance of Contested Global Spaces in an Era of Geopolitics'.

Cynthia van Vonno, political scientist at Leiden University, explains why individual MPs vote according to the party group line.

From corpus pragmatics and metapragmatics to accountability and intentions, and from conversational structure and im/politeness to the role of emotions in utterance interpretation, the short articles collected here represent not just the wide scope of Michael's own work but also a snapshot of the field,…

Alumni event, Lezing

This open access book brings together an eclectic cast of scholars in related disciplines to examine ageing in the Soviet Union, covering the practice of geriatrics, the science of gerontology, and the experience of growing old. Chapters in the book focus on concepts and themes that analyse Soviet ageing…

How we think about and act on the usefulness of scientific research has epistemological and political implications: what knowledge consists of, how it comes about and to what ends. In this dissertation, I situate the usefulness of scientific research in concrete places for knowledge exchange. The exchange…

This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the south Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research…

In 2016, the 23 members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) generated a collective economic value of €99.8 billion in Gross Value Added and 1.3 million jobs. These and other figures, which appear in a just published report by LERU, demonstrate the impressive contribution that LERU…

Dutch right-wing political party Forum for Democracy has repeatedly demonstrated that it has no lower limit when it comes to morals. Should the courts in the Netherlands protect democracy by banning parties like Forum? Several legal experts from Leiden University commented on this question in newspaper…

Eric De Brabandere, Anna Marhold and Nico Schrijver of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies have been included as arbitrators and Trade and Sustainable Development experts in the newly established European Commission pool in the framework of EU free trade agreements enforcement.

The European Parliament has published a study on the Commission’s Smart Border Proposal co-authored by Jorrit Rijpma, Associate Professor at the Europa Institute in Leiden.

On 16 and 17 June, the Academy for European Law in Trier organized its annual conference on European migration in Brussels.

European labour law has an unmistakable influence on national law. This applies even more to the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as it has implications for the application of European law in the Member States and with it the interpretation of national law. Collected Cases…

On Wednesday 27 February, a group of around 30 Leiden Law students visited the EU’s Agency for the coordination of cooperation between police authorities, the European Police Office (Europol) in the world’s legal capital: The Hague.

Provides a cutting-edge comparative political economy analysis of welfare and inequality across ten East Asian countries.

On Friday 23 April, Jorrit Rijpma appeared before the European Parliament’s Working Group on Frontex Scrutiny. This working group was set up by the Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) in response to allegations of serious fundamental rights violations taking place…

On 20 October 2021 the plenary of the European Economic and Social Committee adopted its opinion on the proposed EU strategy for the Schengen area.

Leiden University linguist Lisa Cheng speaks two Chinese languages, as well as English and Dutch. She is a strong supporter of the European Commission's wish that every European citizen learns to speak several languages. ‘Speaking three languages is not that difficult.’

On 29 November 2019, Christa Tobler gave a lecture in Brussels on the new case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the field of gender discrimination.

On 12 September the students of the European Law Master gathered in the Lorentzzaal for the festive opening of their programme.

This book on Alba is edited by Maurits Ebben, Margriet Lacy-Bruijn and Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier. Each of its fifteen chapters are dedicated to developing a new understanding of a sometimes misunderstood figure in European history.

On 24 June, Olga Ceran and Vasiliki Kosta, together with Peter Maassen from the University of Oslo, presented the Academic Freedom Monitor 2024 to the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT).