It rarely happens: halting a decision by walking out of a meeting. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with it from a constitutional law perspective,’ says Geerten Boogaard, Professor by Special Appointment of Local Government, in ‘Leidsch Dagblad’.

On Thursday evening, three local councillors from the ONS.Vlaardingen party walked out of a council meeting during a vote on a no-confidence motion. One councillor even went home after the vote out of dissatisfaction with the proceedings. The no-confidence motion against Vlaardingen's municipal executive…

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

On 4 March 2024, the Local Public Sector Alliance (LPSA) held a meeting of its Working Group on Local Democracy and Inclusive Governance, in which theoretical ideas and experiences about local governance and decentralisation were discussed. Esteban Szmulewicz, PhD candidate at the Department of Constitutional…

Voters sent a clear signal in the recent Dutch provincial council elections with the 'monster' victory for the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging, BBB). This sign of ‘social resistance’ has consequences for the policy on nitrogen emissions, according to Geerten Boogaard, Professor of Local…

This book offers a concise and accessible introduction to debates about expertise, policy-making and democracy. It uniquely combines an overview of recent research on the policy role of experts with discussions in political philosophy and the philosophy of expertise.

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.

It can no longer be taken for granted that EU member states are stable democracies. What should the EU do to protect democracy given increasing democratic backsliding in some member states?

This project analyses the democratic consequences of increasing decentralization and regionalization in European countries. Through an original approach that foregrounds informal political dynamics, it studies the functioning of democracy in subnational units, and investigates the effects of ever more…

Does democracy still work? How does political representation function in times of fragmentation, populism and polarization? You will study the challenges that established and new democracies face.

What does the interspecies interpretation of the equality principle mean for the liberal democracy, and is it possible to provide for an appropriate legal and political position for animals without defying the classic-liberal principles of the liberal democratic state?

The interdisciplinary network Faith in Democracy (FID) studies the religious, sometimes even totalitarian, assumptions behind the concept of

This book, edited by Joost Augusteijn, Constant Hijzen and Mark Leon de Vries, explores how democratic regimes have dealt with anti-democratic forces in society, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

This book explores the spiritual potential of faith, mysticism and transcendence in answer to the dangers of a mythologised state and the sacro-sanctification of (liberal) democracy and its rule of law.

In the wake of controversial disclosures of classified government information by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, questions about the democratic status of secret uses of political power are rarely far from the headlines. Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing government transparency – such…

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

More allowance should be made for differences between municipalities, argues Geerten Boogaard, Thorbecke Professor of Local Government. The Municipalities Act could, for instance, offer a ‘menu of options’ for the decision on whether to have an elected mayor. Professor Boogaard will deliver his inaugural…

On 25 October 2018, Tu Zhang defended her thesis 'Public Reason Secularism: A Defense of Liberal Democracy'. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. P. Cliteur.

Under what circumstances is politicization more likely to occur than others, and what impact does politicization have on government legitimacy and performance?

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

Local Knowledge Syndrome and Donor-Promoted Public Sector Reforms in Developing Countries. Effective development often fails because relief organizations don't study the local knowlegde and problems, says Moosa Elayah. A Local Bank of Knowledge can be the answer.

On 1 June 2022, Tom Herrenberg defended the thesis 'Prosecutorial Discretion in International Criminal Justice'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.B. Cliteur and Prof. B.R. Rijpkema.

Consensus and harmony or balance and reciprocity?

This edited volume offers a critical discussion of the trade-offs between transparency and secrecy in the actual political practice of democratic states in Europe. As such, it answers to a growing need to systematically analyse the problem of secrecy in governance in this political and geographical…

Representing Japanese Colonial 'Heritage' in Taiwan

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.

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.

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…

This thesis attempts to interrogate post-1991-2015 political development in Ethiopia, focusing on the political discourses espoused by the government and opposition, using the discourse analysis method and securitization theory.

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Throughout this research project, you will often find us on the streets of Leiden talking to residents about their perceptions of safety. Over the coming months, you may well find our interns Jelle and Roellinde in Leiden’s many districts and in markets, shopping centres and meeting places across the…

On 14 January 2021, Joost Westerweel defended his thesis 'Lokale democratische innovatie'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. G. Boogaard and Prof. M.J. Cohen.

Acquiring and maintaining public support is frequently cited as an important requirement for governments fighting non-state actors. But how exactly can public support influence the course of counterterrorism campaigns and thereby contribute to an escalation or de-escalation of violence?

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

In this article, Gerrit Dijkstra and Jos Raadschelders from the Institute of Public Administration, argue that Bosnia-Herzegovina survives so far on the basis of negative legitimacy.

Promotor: R. Gill, Co-promotor: P. Massart

How can the Indonesian National Ombudsman make the transition from autonomous to responsive justice in view of the day-to-day challenges it is faced with?

Systems with local constraints is a new finding in recent researches on complex systems. The heterogeneous spatial interactions and the temporal dependencies among those numerous units make it difficult to describe by traditional statistical physics.

Els Bogaerts defended her theses on 20 December 2017.

In what way is constructivist logic able to account for both the role of the judging agent in inference and the universal claims of logical validity?

In this book, Vanessa Newby provides the first detailed examination of credibility’s essential place in peacekeeping.

What did it mean to be enslaved in in the Indian Ocean world in the 18th and 19th centuries? Over the last decades, historians have mined French, British, Portuguese and Dutch records for quantitative data on the European slave trade. This project focuses on the experience of being a slave and seeks…

This volume of Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia focuses on how local communities in prehistory define themselves in relation to a bigger social world.

On 13 September 2023 Eline Scheerlinck successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

International trade plays a critical role in global food security, with global consumption having highly localized environmental impacts.

Elon Musk managed to foil a strategic Ukrainian drone attack with the push of a button. It clearly shows that democracy is hanging by a thread, says Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at Leiden University and Professor of Digitisation and the Democratic Rule of Law at the Open University, Reijer…