Why do some civil wars experience quagmire, a situation in which belligerents are trapped in fighting? To explain this puzzle, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) analyses the overlapping strategic interactions between foreign powers and the warring parties. Studying…

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,…

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

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.

The interdisciplinary minor American Studies offers a survey of U.S. history, literature and culture from the establishment of the first colonies on the North American continent in the 15th century to the present.

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

Drawing on the analogical lessons of the Great War, this article uses applied history to analyze how the four parallels discerned can help us make sense of contemporary Sino-American rivalry

The Department of Civil Law is responsible for education and research in the field of civil law. We teach the master’s degree programme Civiel Recht (Civil Law LL.M.), attracting many students each year from Leiden and elsewhere.

The NWO-funded Vidi project “American foreign policy and liberalism” challenges the idea that the United States has created and sustained a “liberal international order” since World War II. It instead explores the ways in which illiberal ideologies – such as those underpinning racial hierarchy at home…

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.

The master’s programme in North American Studies at Leiden University takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the United States, with a particular emphasis on examining key aspects of American history, culture, and literature.

The master’s programme of Latin American Studies offered by Leiden University supports the teaching and research of the social, cultural, historical, and linguistic diversity of contemporary Latin America, a region of mind-blowing diversity and global impact.

Latin America is a region with an immense cultural diversity and a colorful, fascinating and sometimes complicated past and present. Get to know the culture, history and the Spanish or Portuguese language of Latin America and develop yourself into a valuable region specialist with a critical worldvi…

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.

Are you thinking about studying North American Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying Latin American Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

How and why governments engage with civil society as well as how civil society organizes itself and exerts political influence constitute the key focus of the research programme Public Governance & Civil Society. As such, this research programme offers unique expertise within the field of public administration…

Civil Law is a specialisation of the master’s programme Rechtsgeleerdheid (Law) at the renowned Leiden Law School of Leiden University.

Bas Rietjens and his colleagues researched the Russia-Ukraine war, exploring this multitude of facets and their interconnections.

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

The States, Markets, and Civil Society department of the Institute of Public Administration examines how politics and governance, businesses, citizens, and societal organisations collaborate to address major societal challenges. This includes issues such as inequality, migration, and sustainability.

The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

The MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations at Leiden University covers the entire range of present-day research on the civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, Greece and the Roman Empire. In chronological terms, the program covers thousands of years, from the early origins…

This project aims to provide evidence-based knowledge on the conditions for successful anti-corruption activism in Ukraine.

This multidisciplinary minor within the department of Latin American Studies offers the opportunity to combine language acquisition courses in Spanish or Portuguese with modules in the history, literature, culture and cinema of Spanish America and Brazil. Students can choose to follow the Spanish or…

This reflection for Critical Studies on Terrorism, explores two decades of the 'War of Terror' and what it means today.

In 1940 the Germany occupiers ordered the dismissal of all Jewish staff of the university. This resulted in protest speeches by fellow academics.

Covering all seven countries on the isthmus, this volume presents the first collection of original linguistic studies on Central American Spanish varieties, which have long been neglected in Hispanic Linguistics.

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.

Information about the situation in Ukraine

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) master's at Leiden University covers the entire range of present-day research on the civilisations of Greece and Rome, Egypt and the Ancient Near East.

These days we do not just have wars and civil wars – more of a global civil war, says Bashir Azizi, who received a PhD in April 2020 for his thesis on global citizenship. The second edition of his thesis was recently published.

Are you thinking about studying the Advanced LL.M. Civil and Commercial Law? Learn more and watch the videos.

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.

This book explores how public health concerns and political agendas influenced each other in the US over the past century.

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.

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

Leiden University commemorates its victims of the war and pays tribute to all members of the university community who resisted injustice.

On 18 April, Alexandre Tavadian defended the thesis 'The International Civil Service: Redefining Its Independence'. The doctoral research was supervised by Niels Blokker and Brian McGarry.

'The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia' explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach.

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

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.

How was anti-communism organized in the West? New volume edited by Giles Scott-Smith, Luc van Dongen and Stephanie Roulin on the aims, arguments and associations of a range of transnational anti-communist activists during the Cold War.

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…

A new special issue on translation and the cultural Cold War sheds light on the understudied and yet important role of translation in cultural transfer.

Leiden University’s Master of International Civil and Commercial Law (L.L.M.) examines the interrelated layers of hard law, soft law, and relevant case law.