Lecture

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…

Pepita Hesselberth is Assistant Professor Film, Literary and Media Studies at Leiden University, and research fellow at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

On June 16, 2025, the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University hosted a panel debate about the ongoing mass student-led protests in Serbia. The protests have shaken the increasingly illiberal regime in Serbia to its core and have grown into the largest student protests in Europe since 196…

Lecture

Are you working at Leiden University and researching migration regimes outside of the Global North? Are you interested in doing fieldwork or a research visit at one of our partner universities? Then you might want to join the Leiden team of the EU-funded Marie Curie Staff Exchange Network on non-western…

That it was students who started the protests in China against its zero Covid policy makes things more dangerous for politicians. China expert Frank Pieke explains the role of students in China, what makes the protests unique and what might happen next.

Assistant Professor Juan Masullo of the Institute of Political Science has been awarded the 2025 Alexander George Best Article Award for his work on interviews and process tracing.

Rodrigo Ochigame is an assistant professor in the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. Their research examines unorthodox models of computational rationality, such as nonclassical logics from Brazil, nonbinary Turing machines from India, and frameworks of…

The Economist published an article about a working paper about the effects of democratic elections on satisfaction with democracy. The paper was written by Dimiter Koshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration and Honorata Mazepus, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security…

On 24 April 2025, political scientist Pawan Kumar Sen will defend his PhD dissertation, "Transforming Nepal’s Political System: Party Positions and Public Opinion (2004-2012)," at Leiden University. His research examines how Nepal’s major political parties navigated key state restructuring reforms—republicanism,…

Antoaneta Dimitrova's research brings together different lines of inquiry relating to governance transfer across national borders. An enduring theme in her work has been the effect of the European Union on the democratic and market transformations of the post-communist states of Central and Eastern…

Americans are electing a new president in November but they also have other choices to make in the polling booth. Alumnus Sanne Rijkhoff works at a Texas university and is trying to help make students more aware of the elections.

Debate

We are pleased to invite paper proposals for the 1.5-day interdisciplinary workshop: “Who rules over migrants? Autocratic elements in migration policies”, that will take place at the University of Leiden on 14 and 15 November 2024.

Joana Cook talks about the Islamist parties increasingly taking power in the last four decades on ABC News.

Karolina Kudlek is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Philosophy.

Sjoerd Keulen holds the Special Chair in Public Audit, Policy Evaluation and Accountability established and funded by the Netherlands Court of Audit since 2023. Sjoerd's teaching and research focuses on policy research with impact. Research-based information is crucial for assessing the performance…

I am a political scientist with a focused research agenda on two interrelated strands: (i) understanding the contextual factors and institutional frameworks that enable politicians and bureaucrats to deliver successful policy outcomes in the Global South; and (ii) decentring Public Administration by…

Lars Dorren is an assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration (Leiden University), interested in knowledge use in processes of reasoning and decision-making. As an ethnographer, Lars approaches reasoning as a dynamic group activity; a spontaneous practice in which individuals rely…

Henriëtte van den Heuvel is Scientific Director of the Institute of Political Science.

Justin Spruit is a lecturer at the institute of Political Science.

On Tuesday 30 September 2025, PhD candidate Jonathan Collins will defend his dissertation A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Far-Right Alt-Tech Social Media Movement in Leiden’s Academy Building. His work examines the communication dynamics of far-right communities on alternative…

The world’s attention will shift to China as the Communist Party is set to hold its five-yearly congress beginning on 16 October. We talk to Senior University Lecturer Florian Schneider about how its leader Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Ze…

Dr. Joana Cook is a graduate of King’s College London where she completed her MA and PhD in the Department of War Studies (BA University of Regina). Her research more broadly focuses on women in violent extremism, countering violent extremism, and counter-terrorism practices. More recent scholarly interests…

Dr. Sarah Carthy is an assistant professor in terrorism an political violence at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. She is a graduate of the University of Galway where she completed her BA and PhD in Psychology. Her research mainly focuses on radicalisation, evidence-based approaches to prevention…

Stijn Willem van ’t Land works as a researcher and PhD candidate for the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA). His doctoral research focuses on violence committed by lone actors.

Roy Hofkamp is a PhD-researcher at Leiden University - Institute of Security and Global Affairs. His research interests lie, among other things, in governance and responsibilization in relation to close protection. He is involved in the research project Close Protection and Surveillance. He has a background…