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?

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.

On Monday 10 December, the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights dr. Adam Bodnar delivered the eighth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights at Leiden Law School. The event marked the annual celebration of International Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed to commemorate…

PhD Defence

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An experimental comparison of the impact of liberal norms on a population residing and socialised within a democracy (the Netherlands) with a population in an autocracy (China) and their respective supports for war with another state shows that the level of liberal norms in the democratic experimental…

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.

On 10 October 2019, Janneke Vink defended her thesis 'The Open Society and Its Animals'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.B. Cliteur.

In 2014 Hans-Martien ten Napel received a Research Fellowship in Legal Studies at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ. The book he wrote as a result of this fellowship was published last week by Routledge Law.

The eleven innovative essays in this volume explore the notion that all forms of modern mass politics, including liberal democracies, need such a form of sacralization of politics to function.

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory it offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse.

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".

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?

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.

Political scientist Maurits de Jongh (Leiden University/Sciences Po) argues that political liberalism is self-defeating as a framework of justification for liberal conceptions of justice. He explores how the framework's self-imposed criterion of acceptability in the eyes of all reasonable citizens leads…

In recent decades, the Netherlands’ struggle with multiculturalism has caused an upsurge in public interest in the relationship between state and religion. In this, the Dutch address a subject relevant not just to them, but to all of Europe.

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…

The Secular Outlook describes what moral and political secularism means. It paints the image of a world view in which state and religion are kept well separated.

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.

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the left. His central claim holds that “today, it is more crucial than ever to continue to question the very foundations of capitalism as a global system”.

Geert Wilders’ PVV Party believes that Islam is a totalitarian ideology and not a religion, and thus Muslims are not equally entitled to the same freedom of religion or belief as other believers. This view is incompatible with liberal democracy, according to Hans-Martien ten Napel.

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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…

Andrei Poama, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, published a piece in the journal of Political Philosophy about social injustice, disadvantaged offenders and the state's authority to punish.

On 11 March, Oliver Rathkolb (University of Vienna) held a lecture about Social Democracy.

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.

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.

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 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.

How do democracies develop? The Institute for History is devoting a three-day conference to this question.

The 80,000 visitors to the Liberation Day Festival in The Hague on 5 May can learn about 444-year-old Leiden University at a range of interactive events on Malieveld and in the Dutch Parliament.

The CEES Centre regularly hosts (guest) lectures, roundtables, and film screenings.

Politics is about the authorised allocation of values: who gets what, when and how much? This question is relevant at many different levels, in many different places and in very different ways.

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.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing?” “What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law?” These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

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.

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,…

“Transitional justice” is a field of practice, policy and study that focuses on the ways that societies respond to legacies of large-scale atrocities though tribunals, truth commissions, reparations, and other mechanisms.

In January 2020, Dr Min Jung Cho and Dr Annie Trevenen-Jones of LUC The Hague applied for the LUF - SVM (Stichting Verpakking en Milieu/ Foundation for Packaging and the Environment) grant. In June 2020 they were awarded a grant amounting to the sum of €75,000.

For the second time in six months, Hans-Martien ten Napel has been invited to write the opening essay for a series of international blog posts.

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