Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University) explains why Mozambique is not (yet) a success story.

In ‘Dimensions of Free Speech’, Devrim Kabasakal Badamchi (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) offers a new theoretical framework for free speech by critically analysing the major justifications for free speech. Kabasakal Badamchi argues for a justification: namely the double-grounded…

Populist opposition parties are less likely to engage in policy-making behaviour (participating in or directly influencing legislative production) and somewhat more likely to engage in scrutiny behaviour (monitoring and criticising government actions).

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.

Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor Comparative Governance at Leiden University, Honorata Mazepus, Assistant professor at Leiden University and Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at Leiden University, together with three other authors researched which aspects of state capacity might contribute to opening…

A comparative analysis of legitimation strategies in tree hybrid regimes: Russia, Venezuela, and Seychelles.

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.

Promotor: Prof.dr. P. Stevenhagen & Prof.dr. K. Belabas (Univ. de Bordeaux)

The chief aim of this study is to explore how classical Persian poetry and the Persian mysticism that is interwoven with the poetry have been used in the new politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the Iran-Iraq war.

In the upcoming Dutch general elections, the focus of the party campaigns is on national issues. Luuk van Middelaar, Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union and its Institutions, argues in a column in Dutch newspaper NRC that foreign policy should also be on the agenda.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members examine the sources, design, effects and contestation of norms, rules, institutionalised practices and formal organisations that operate across national…

Law and peace in the work of Hans Kelsen. A re-evaluation of Kelsen’s legal philosophy: legal pacifism as tacit meaning of his Pure Theory of Law

In this article, Kuipers and Timmermans analyze the first lady's relationship with policy problems in the period 1945-2013.

Monday 5 September 2016, the political science bachelor’s and master’s programmes kick off. We are looking forward to meeting our new students. And we will happily help them to find their way around.

This study investigates how the tenure of security (proxied by both inter- and intra-party electoral advantage) affects the engagement and political performance of members of parliament.

The specialisation consists of a core course in political theory, a methods course, and several optional modules, including political theory options on themes such as Contemporary Theories of Justice, Human Rights Theory, Borders and Migration, and Environmental Ethics. The specialisation concludes…

In this programme, you will follow a core course and thesis seminar on governance and diversity, as well as elective seminars. Furthermore, you will work on your academic and professional skills, as well as acquaint yourself with the state-of-the-art in Political Science.

In this programme, you will follow a core course and thesis seminar on international organisation, as well as seminars related to policy-making and evaluation. Furthermore, you will work on your academic and professional skills, as well as acquaint yourself with the state-of-the-art in Political Sci…

In 2019, Aliaksandr Lukashenka marks a quarter of a century as the first, and so far only president of the Republic of Belarus. This new book by Dr. Matthew Frear, Assistant Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies, offers the most up-to-date analysis of government and politics in a country usually…

Research & Politics (RAP) is a peer-reviewed open access journal which focusses on research in political science and related fields through open access publication of the very best cutting-edge research and policy analysis. The journal achieved a high score for the impact factor, which puts it in 49th…

The parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, scheduled for March 2017, are likely to result in a fragmented parliament and a complicated coalition formation process, according to Dutch political scientist Hans Vollaard (Leiden University).

Niels van Willigen (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University) puts Dutch participation in UN peacekeeping into an historical context. He analyses the reasons for the Dutch withdrawal from the 1990s onwards, and explores the obstacles and opportunities for a structural return. Van Willigen argues…

Both Europe and Latin America face challenges globally and at home. Conflicts over land and resources have been resurgent in recent years.

This book brings together contributions on topics related to the Dutch EU Presidency Agenda 2016 from a number of scholars who are affiliated with Leiden University.

Xinrong Ma defended her thesis on 13 February 2018

Mateo Cohen (research assistant at the Open University of Israel and PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science) studied arguments articulated by diverse members of the Right-Wing elite in Israel and explains how these views lead to the rejection of a two-state solution and…