This book, edited by Joost Augusteijn, Constant Hijzen and Mark Leon de Vries, explores how democratic regimes have dealt with anti-democratic forces in society, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

This book historicizes the debate over how democratic regimes deal with anti-democratic groupings in society.

Do political parties still perform their representational function? This is one of the main questions facing modern democracy. You will be addressing this issue both theoretically and empirically.

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.

The interdisciplinary network Faith in Democracy (FID) studies the religious, sometimes even totalitarian, assumptions behind the concept of "democracy". Also, the networks explores spiritual foundations for a new legitimacy: a different democratic faith.

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

This book explores the spiritual potential of faith, mysticism and transcendence in answer to the dangers of a mythologised state and the sacro-sanctification of (liberal) democracy and its rule of law.

What does the interspecies interpretation of the equality principle mean for the liberal democracy, and is it possible to provide for an appropriate legal and political position for animals without defying the classic-liberal principles of the liberal democratic state?

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

Honorata Mazepus, Assisstant Professor at Leiden University, researched the topic of Madisonian Judgments in Five Cultures, together with three other authors.

Although many studies have addressed democracy in education around the world, so far research on democratic education in the context of communist society has been scarce. In the current study, we aim to clarify the concept of democratic value and its manifestation in Vietnam’s schools. In addition,…

This edited volume offers a critical discussion of the trade-offs between transparency and secrecy in the actual political practice of democratic states in Europe. As such, it answers to a growing need to systematically analyse the problem of secrecy in governance in this political and geographical…

Political scientist Tom Theuns (Leiden University) has been awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This means that he is recognised as a promising researcher and that he will receive support to develop his ideas further for a period of three years. Theuns will focus on the role…

Under what circumstances is politicization more likely to occur than others, and what impact does politicization have on government legitimacy and performance?

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.

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

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…

The smallness of Suriname, according to political scientist Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden University), strongly affects and shapes the nature of democracy in the country. On the one hand, clientelism ensures that members of each ethnic group included in power-sharing arrangements have access to state resources…

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

Almost all the members of the Dutch House of Representatives, ministers and government officials are university educated. At the same time, the large majority of the electorate have a lower level of education, or even no education. How much of a problem is that? Two new books warn about this gap in…

Jessica Vance Roitman and Wouter Veenendaal, researchers at the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, investigate the origins, development, and consolidation of political oligarchy in the Caribbean island nation of St. Maarten.

This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy.

How can the Indonesian National Ombudsman make the transition from autonomous to responsive justice in view of the day-to-day challenges it is faced with?

On 25 October 2018, Tu Zhang defended her thesis 'Public Reason Secularism: A Defense of Liberal Democracy'. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. P. Cliteur.

After Wallonia’s veto on CETA, a group of 60 academics has come out to defend the European decision-making process in trade policy.

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

In theory, states can gain security by acquiring internal arms or external allies. Yet the empirical literature offers mixed findings: some studies find arms and allies to be substitutes, while others find them to be complements. Political scientists Matthew Digiuseppe (Leiden University) and Paul Poast…

The Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University is host to the NWO programme, "Between Deliberation and Agonism: Rethinking Conflict and its Relation to Law in Political Philosophy".

Cristina Grasseni’s project "Food citizens? " examines the premises and consequences of collective food procurement in three European cities (Rotterdam, Turin and Gdańsk).

The Bolivian people will make their opinion known on a change to the constitution in a referendum on 21 February. Leiden University organised a symposium on the referendum on 11 February. The aim of the change is to allow President Evo Morales to remain in power until 2025.

The starting hypothesis of the project is that secrecy is not always inimical to democratic governance as conventional wisdom has it.

Acquiring and maintaining public support is frequently cited as an important requirement for governments fighting non-state actors. But how exactly can public support influence the course of counterterrorism campaigns and thereby contribute to an escalation or de-escalation of violence?

During Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990) numerous left-wing Chileans fled to Europe. In exile some of their political views became more moderate. Mariana Perry defended her PhD about this topic in September.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Professor Ken Meier to the Chair of Bureaucracy and Democracy at the Institute of Public Administration. The appointment starts on 1 September for a period of five years.

The legal regulation of political parties in post-war Europe.

It is often claimed that social media can contribute to democratic decision-making by bringing politicians and citizens into dialogue with one another. But is this potential always realised, and how? Most researchers look at politicians and their online communication strategies. In this New Media &…

The Centre for the Study of Political Parties and Representation (CSPPR) is an interdisciplinary platform for scholars of Leiden University focusing on the historical and contemporary operation and functioning of political parties, with a particular emphasis on the causes and consequences of the changing…

The leading textbook on governance and politics in the Netherlands. The authors offer a clear and comprehensive account and have revised the text to provide full coverage of recent important developments.

On May 13, prof. Tom R. Tyler (Yale Law School) will hold a lecture at Leiden Law School on "Citizen trust and the legitimacy of democratic governance". He is invited by the Leiden Profile Area "Political Legitimacy" and will be introduced by prof. Wim Voermans. This event is freely and publicly accessible…

Political scientists John Gerring (University of Texas, Austin) and Wouter Veenendaal (Universiteit Leiden) evaluate the political implications stemming from the size of a political unit – on social cohesion, the number of representatives, overall representativeness, particularism ('pork'), citizen…

Early November 2019 lecturer Michael Klos spoke about the freedom of speech on social media at the World Forum for Democracy 2019 in Strasbourg.