The Summer School on International Humanitarian Law is designed by the Grotius Centre Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law. Registration is now open!

Increased public trust in law, government and democracy.

The African Studies Centre Leiden’s Research Programme for 2025-2029 is called ‘African Trajectories: Past Dependencies and New Directions’. Building on its former programme, it extends the recognition of Africa’s pivotal role in world affairs. The continent’s global significance has become increasingly…

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.

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey.

Consensus and harmony or balance and reciprocity?

Why do some parties fail to settle conflict, even after long periods of fighting? ISGA PhD candidate Valerie Sticher suggests that costly concessions often stand in the way of a negotiated agreement. Conflict party members not only care about their in-group's welfare, but also want to avoid rewarding…

This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes…

Within the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, research is organised in seven main research groups:

The energy transition is a complex transformation process that is not only about technology -moving towards renewable energy sources-, but even more so about societal and institutional change. The energy transition requires and provides opportunities for actors to take on new roles.

Lecture

COI@Leiden organises activities and events throughout the year. These include a monthly seminar series on topics relating to conflict resolution and PhD labs to assist COI students in developing their research skills.

For a Union closer to its citizens: social psychological insights into EU-level redistribution and perceived legitimacy.

Right-wing ideology is a dominant force in Israel today. Between 2009 and 2021, and again since 2023, Likud-led governments headed by Benjamin Netanyahu consolidated their vision for the country’s identity and its place in the Middle East. Radicalized Conservatism in Israel presents this vision’s ideological…

Choice is at the very heart of politics. War or peace, left or right, liberty or security, sovereignty or integration, consensus or conflict—choices matter. Choice is also key to your education. Choose an intellectually challenging programme in which you develop your knowledge and expertise in the study…

Festival

The unique geographic and temporal breadth of research at Leiden allows us to stimulate a shift from the classical Weberian mode of scholarly production that views historical development and modernization as emanating from Europe and the West to a multi-polar perspective that allows for more nuanced,…

How do individuals make decisions? What determines the quality of group decisions? When and why do people cooperate with others? How does intergroup competition evolve?

PAIR stands for ethical publishing and transparency. Below you can read about our commitment to COPE principles, copyright compliance and rigorous peer review ensures the integrity of every article we publish.

The Guava Platform, which is at the centre of this PhD thesis, was initiated in 2014 as a conceptual framework of my art practice and research. The aim of the Guava Platform is to research and create possible techniques of art-actions that are part of my quest to continue to live in the conflicted landscape,…

Are you interested in international organisations, issues of peace and security, or current changes in global political relations? Would you like to study the causes of terrorism and the resolution of violent conflicts? Develop your scholarship and skills in international affairs in The Hague.

Professor of International Relations Daniel Thomas is clear: anyone taking peace in Europe for granted is shutting their eyes to reality.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with University of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina.

The aim of this project is to study what makes an act or form of violence a specifically political reality.

The relationship between States and foreign corporations are regulated by international economic law and international investment law in particular. Any disputes between States and foreign corporations must therefore also be solved by reference to this body of public international law, for example when…

Issue 1

At our regular panel discussions we bring together scholars and other experts to discuss a current topic that captures the interest of the general public as well as academics.

'Trust in institutions' is one of Leiden Law School's four research focus areas.

View the programme structure for the MSc International Politics at Leiden University: semester layout, ECTS credits, core courses, and the September intake in The Hague.

Read more about the partner organizations of the Summerschool Global History in the 2020s.

From 2012 onwards the primary scholarly and media focus in regard to foreign fighters has been on the large number of Westerners joining jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. Yet, much less attention has been paid to another conflict in the ring around Europe that attracted foreign fighters: the Russo-Ukrainian…

The devastating war in Gaza and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine have caused widespread grief and deepened global divisions. With recent escalations in the Middle East further inflaming tensions, our students and staff are understandably worried and concerned. The university shares…

How did free agents in the Dutch Republic react to the creation of colonial monopolies (VOC and WIC) by the States-General? This project answers this question by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of an informal global empire parallel to the institutional empire devised by the…

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

On 1 April 2020, Ivan Romashchenko defended his thesis 'Related Party Transactions and Corporate Groups: When Eastern Europe Meets the West'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. S.M. Bartman en Prof. A. Radwan (Kaunas, Lithuania).

GLOBALINT is a pioneering study of intelligence in the Global South. It asks ‘how do (un)democratic shifts in political governance impact intelligence services in contexts of violent conflict?

French title: Entre la “détresse’’ et l’inter-connectivite : le case de Mbororo réfugies sur les frontières Cameroun-Centrafrique. This research project investigates the meaning of duress in the lives of nomadic refugees in Cameroon and investigates if and how the accessibility of new ICT’s allow them…

Parental divorce or separation is for many children an adverse experience in itself. Particularly the transitional period just before and after the separation between parents, during which parents and children have to adapt to the disruptions in family life is stressful. Previous studies showed that…

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice program of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper suggests a number of important avenues for states, the UN, and the ICC to improve the likelihood that the ICC receives assistance from UN peace operations.

Together with Pepijn Tuinier and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, Sebastiaan Rietjens researched the role of trust in an international intelligence cooperation.

The research of the unit is aimed at the development of models to explain and describe the influences in social systems. Social influences are studied in three ways: from the perspective of group dynamics, from an individual-cognitive perspective, and from an economic and consumer psychological pers…

On 1 April 2020, Marc Broekema defended his thesis 'Cognitive Bias in the Judgment of Business Valuations and Valuators'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.I. van der Rest.

Challenges for the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, traditional cultural expressions, and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples in the international scenario.

This interdisciplinary study focuses on (trans)national ethnic and popular networks, combining historical-ethnographic and computational methods to understand the ‘workings’ of networked conflict interfering in the increasingly violent conflict in the Sahel (Africa) and beyond. The project focuses on…

COUNTERRR examines domestic responses to jihadist armed groups in Africa, analyzing variation in state repression, community resistance, and the evolution of security across Mali, Nigeria, and Mozambique.

On 30 November, Florian Theissen defended the thesis 'Sincerely believing in freedom: a reconstruction and comparison of the interpretation of the freedom of religion and belief on the Canadian Supreme Court, the South African Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights'. The doctoral…

This is a joint PhD of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Leiden University and the Evolutionary Ecology Group at Antwerp University.