What drives the restrictiveness of immigration reforms? Political scientists Katharina Natter (Leiden University), Mathias Czaika (Danube University Krems) and Hein de Haas (University of Amsterdam) analysed immigration reforms in 21 Western immigration countries between 1970 and 2012. They found that…

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 Centre for the Study of Political Parties and Representation (CSPPR) aims to serve as an interdisciplinary platform for scholars of Leiden University for research focusing on the historical and contemporary operation and functioning of political parties and political representation, with a particular…

How did parties as political organizations emerge?

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).

This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular.

How many written parliamentary questions does each party put to each minister? Political scientists Simon Otjes (University of Groningen) and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) studied the practice in Dutch parliament and found that parties use parliamentary questions strategically as part of their ‘permanent…

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).

What does a political party do in the wake of a disastrous electoral defeat? Martijn van Nijnanten researched this and discovered that parties turn to core values from the past. PhD defence on 12 September.

The central theme of the NWO-project ‘The Promise of Organization’ is the evolution of political organization during the 19th century. We focus on the enthusiasm, arguments and concrete activities of the organizers as well as the criticism offered by opponents of modern political organization.

Samuel Jong has won the Institute of Political Science MSc Thesis Prize 2016. With ‘Bridging the Gap: Do Ideological Differences Determine Whether Center-Right Parties Cooperate with the Radical Right?’, Jong completed his Political Science master studies. His research findings, according to the jury,…

Diana Dávila Gordillo, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science does field trips to her native Ecuador.

Fransje Molenaar, who defended her dissertation at the Institute of Political Science (Leiden University) in September 2017, has been awarded the Jaarprijs Politicologie. Out of 66 entries from Flanders and The Netherlands, her study of party legislation in Latin America made the biggest impression…

Political scientist Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) and a team of international researchers have been awarded a NWO ORA grant. They are going to investigate political representation in an era in which voter alignment with political parties is steadily decreasing.

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”.

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Tom Louwerse, lecturer and researcher at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been awarded a NWO Vidi grant. This will enable him to conduct research on how government and opposition parties cooperate in parliament and how this affects voters’ party choices and satisfaction with d…

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The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

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

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Political scientist Luzia Helfer (Leiden University) empirically tested claims about media-politics relatiopns using unique data from experimental studies with elected politicians and political journalists in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

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.

The research group Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of only analyzing high politics (the acts of governments and political parties), the research group focuses…

This PhD research project seeks to study the local politics in Mainland China (specifically focus on South Fujian ) by comparing with that of Taiwan——What is the specific ecology of local politics in the two regions during different eras and its role played in the political system as a whole?

The Centre for the Study of Political Parties and Representation is hosted by Leiden University.

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Cynthia van Vonno, political scientist at Leiden University, explains why individual MPs vote according to the party group line.

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.

This month's news and events by the profile area Political Legitimacy features the announcement of two PhD defences and several interesting seminars and conferences at Leiden University.

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.

On 22 February 2017 political scientist Tim Mickler (Leiden University) defended his dissertation on the structure, composition, and working of parliamentary committees. He was awarded the exceptional predicate 'cum laude'.