Research in the International Relations and European Studies Team addresses the interconnections and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic and cultural affairs from a multidisciplinary perspective rooted in the humanities.

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in Medieval European History, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent.

Are you thinking about studying European Union Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

European Border Communities provides an overview of interdisciplinary research on the dynamics, challenges and effects of cross border mobilities and the management thereof.

The book addresses the question “How and why do people become involved in European homegrown jihadism?

Almost all languages of Europe and of a large part of western Asia belong to a single language family, which is called Indo-European, and which includes modern languages like English, Dutch, Russian, Farsi, but also ancient ones like Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite and Sanskrit.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

The first results of the “Policing European Metropolises project” (PEMP) that associate Professor Elke Devroe and Professor P. Ponsaers launched in April 2013 are now published. Having been the referent for The Netherlands and Belgium in the Urbis project (Leonardo programme), the project focuses on…

In this research project, the protection of personal data is compared in eight EU member states: France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. The comparison of the countries is focused on government policies for the protection of personal data, the applicable laws and…

On 9 September 2020, Ruben de Graaff defended his thesis 'Concurrence in European Private Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.G. Castermans and Prof. S.C.G. Van den Bogaert.

Agrian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000; C.C. Bakels

Madeleine O. Hosli, Professor of International Relations, wrote this book in which she analyses the complex relations between the European Union (EU) as a regional organization and the United Nations (UN) as an international, global governance institution.

The overall objective of ECS is to widen and strengthen the European Citizen Science community through capacity building and awareness raising activities such as the creation of a European Citizen Science Academy and the establishment of a network of 28 ECS Ambassadors.

The European courtroom as political arena? Judicial interference in politically charged issues in European asylum law and criminal law

The project Advancing The European Multilingual Experience (AThEME) studied multilingualism in Europe by incorporating and combining linguistic, cognitive and sociological perspectives.

A large amount of the EU's used or wasted textile is exported towards lower-income countries. Much of this exported textile is either burned or dumped and the amount that is truly reused or recycled is uncertain.

Just published: European Banking and Financial Law Statutes Published by Routledge

Are you thinking about studying Public Administration: International and European Governance? Learn more and watch the videos.

What is “teaching excellence” in Higher Education? Which different teaching excellence training, promotion and reward schemes exist across Europe? How can a common European teaching scheme look like? The e-NOTE project led by Leiden University seeks to answer these question in cooperation with five…

This article presents a new dyadic approach to studying voting behaviour in the Council of the European Union.

The Central and Eastern European Studies Centre is an interdisciplinary platform of scholars of Leiden University. The Centre’s mission is to bundle together, strengthen and disseminate existing research into the history, politics, and culture of the region, spanning the new member states of the EU,…

On 21 October 2021, Frederik Behre defended the thesis 'A European Ministry of Finance?'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. S.C.G. Van den Bogaert.

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

The coronacrisis makes painfully clear that a transboundary crisis requires a transboundary response. The European Union could play a key role, but that has not happened so far. Political scientist Amy Verdun (Leiden University) explains why.

This special issue of the Journal of European Policy presents results from the research on the European Union Enlargement and its Integration Capacity. The Journal of European Public Policy is one of the leading journals in this field.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’.

This article 'Shaping the European External Action Service and its post-Lisbon crisis management structures: an assessment of the EU High Representatives’ political leadership' assesses the role, influence and core aspects of the EU High Representatives’ (HR/VPs) “political leadership” in the context…

How can the problems in establishing a sustainable common security and defence mechanism for the EU be explained?

Team Early Modern and Modern European History.

The article examines how Southern European member states' newspapers portray European irregular migration governance.

EU foreign policy has become increasingly politicised over the past years, amongst others as a consequence of the succession of crises. Crises may engender processes of crisis framing and contestation. This article focuses on how the policy demands being voiced in these processes of contestation are…

The aim of this EU+ project is to study and develop instructional tools for inclusive pedagogies in higher education.

What drives public agencies’ propensity to engage in more extensive practices and/or to initiate more far-reaching mechanisms of accountability than those mandated by law? In other words, what are the drivers of voluntary accountability?

The Team Early Modern and Modern European History.

Study information

The revolutionary organizations in Paris and Berlin around 1848.

Madeleine O. Hosli & Jaroslaw Kantorowicz analyze EU states' foreign policy divergence at the UN General Debate, assessing if Lisbon Treaty reforms increased EU cohesion or if states maintain distinct positions.

In our European and International Business Law Advanced Master programme, you learn to decipher the hierarchy of European & international business law

In this article, Seda Gürkan & Rosa Sanchez Salgado show which emotions the Members of European Parliament (MEP) expressed in the wake of Qatargate.

Whilst government’s ability to design ‘context-specific’ regional innovation policy is generally assumed to depend on the region’s decision-making power, the aim of this study is to investigate how regional government matters. In order to open up the black box of policy design, the study develops a…

The handbook is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterise the period, and of the specific developments that took…