The notion of North Koreans as brainwashed and unable to think critically about their heritage and what it means to be North Korean is pervasive. More so, it is untrue, argues Christopher Green: ‘North Koreans, like any other people are diverse in their opinions and self-understanding.’ PhD defence…

Seven prominent North Korean exiles will shed new light on the dictatorial state in a conference hosted by Leiden University on 17 and 18 September. All of the speakers once held high-ranking positions in the regime and now reveal its inner workings.

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

If Dutch cinema is examined in academic studies, the focus is usually on pre-war films or on documentaries, but the post-war fiction film has been sporadically addressed.

Through a range of case studies spanning the post-Cold War period in Iraq, Moldova and Serbia, this book studies asymmetric conflicts where warring sides exhibit vast power differentials.

The Revolt in The Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects…

This book offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

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In this article, Ben de Jong, research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines the relationship between double agents and their handlers.

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice programme of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper discusses four important challenges to the involvement of UN peace operations in international criminal justice: its effects on host state relations, peace and justice…

The historiography of the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 is dominated by the personal clash between the principal negotiators, Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of Britain.

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In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and…

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University) about the organisation of rebel and government auxiliaries in the civil war in Mozambique (1976–1992).

The Afro-Asianism of the early Cold War has long remained buried under the narrative of Bandung, homogenising and subverting the different visions of post-colonial worldmaking that co-existed alongside the Bandung project.

Onderzoek van de onderzoeksgroep 'War, Peace and Justice'

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Volume I of The Cambridge History of Strategy offers a history of the practice of strategy from the beginning of recorded history, to the late eighteenth century, from all parts of the world.

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.

North Korean labourers are still being forced to work in the European Union. According to researchers, including Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker at Leiden University, Dutch companies are buying ships from a dockyard that uses North Korean workers.

Cigdem Oguz defended her thesis on 13 June 2018

Who are open-source intelligence activists and how reliable are their contributions to public understanding of Russia’s war in Ukraine?

By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions.

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…

This edited volume by Jeff Fynn-Paul pushes forward the debate on the role of entrepreneurs in making war and building states in Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

Investigating the relations between Tupi Indigenous Knowledge, Museum Collections and the Dutch Colonization of Brazil

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

In her dissertation, Xiao Ma takes education as a lens to reveal the dynamic relations of three groups of South Koreans – parents, students, and educational agencies – to nation-states of both the origin and arrival. Her study shows the temporality and ambivalence of population movements between two…

To what extent have the Dutch and British militaries learned from their counterinsurgency operations in southern Afghanistan between 2006 and 2020?

A new vision on the Revolt of the Low Countries through the eyes of Spanish commanders

North Korean workers designed and built numerous monuments, museums and other buildings in southern Africa. This is clear from research by history student Tycho van der Hoog for his master's thesis. These monuments can be an important source of income for a country that has become quite isolated on…

Lecture, Seventh Annual Austrian Studies Lecture

On 31 August 2022, a delegation from the Korean Ministry of Government Legislation visited the International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) at Leiden University as part of their official visit to the Netherlands. The delegation’s visit was aimed at exchanging knowledge and experience on interaction…

Subproject of

In Reframing the Diplomat Albertine Bloemendal offers a unique window onto the unofficial dimension of Cold War transatlantic relations by analyzing the diplomatic role of the Dutch Atlanticist Ernst van der Beugel as a government official and as a private diplomat.

The territories that would make up what is today the Republic of Zambia officially became British in 1891. However, this did not equate to an on-the-ground presence of colonial authority capable of affecting the destiny and daily lives of people.

In this chapter, Linde Desmaele & Luis Simón examine NATO’s strategic adaptation since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

This book explores the reception of foreign news during the late sixteenth-century civil wars in France and the Netherlands.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Does foreign aid promote human rights?

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.

Lecture, European Union Seminar / CHEI Seminar

Lecture | Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language & Culture

Film screening

In this article, Thomas Maguire, assistant professor at the Institute of Governance and Global Affairs, examines the intelligence of the US, British and Ukrainian governments and NATO partners concerning Russia and its war against Ukraine. This article discusses how and why governments communicate intelligence…