This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study the design and functioning of Dutch political institutions as well as attitudes and behaviour of political elites and citizens.

Press freedom in Indonesia is still under pressure, despite the demise of Soeharto’s regime in 1998

This project examines the meaning of this historical place, and the way it has been used by the political institutions that have had their seat there.

The project will clarify that in the search for these new means the treatise On the sublime of ps.-Longinus played a crucial role. However, the project will also place the theatre performances in a broader social and political perspective. These public events and the theatre performances suggest that…

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.

On 29 January 2019, CBC News, Canada’s largest news broadcaster, interviewed Dr. Joris Larik about the status of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada.

Floris Heidsma is a student in the MA North American Studies. He is currently spending one semester in Canada as an exchange student at the University of Calgary. On TheLeidener blog, he shares some of his experiences of living and studying in Canada.

This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden…

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in Mexico since 1968

How did rulers in the Netherlands and in adjacent smaller German territories adapt their regimes to ongoing change in legitimacy and decision-making during the transition period 1780-1820?

This handbook is aimed at a wide readership interested in developing an understanding of the political, economic, and social complexity of Eastern Europe. It covers Central Europe, the Baltic republics, South Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, as well as all the countries of the former Soviet…

Political scientist Matthew Longo (Leiden University) takes a detailed look at the evolution of border security in the United States after 9/11. Far from the walls and fences that dominate the news, he reveals borders to be thick, multi-faceted and binational institutions that have evolved greatly in…

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…

Hegemony and World Order explores a key question for our tumultuous times of multiple global crises.

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.

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…

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

Combine the analytical tools of the Political Science discipline with an in-depth study of current politics in the Netherlands.

Mario van der Stelt (Head of the department of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry) has received the Young Investigator Award from the International Cannabinoid Research Society during the annual meeting of the society in Montreal, Canada. The Young Investigator Award was given…

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.

Why did India develop a strong military partnership with the state of Irael, after having ignored it for 42 years? How could both countries develop defense ties in spite of limited political leadership involvement? Finally, what are the prospects for defense relations as India grows to become one of…

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…

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.

Impressions by Oene de Haan - PhD candidate at Utrecht University

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

The specialisation Culture and Politics of the master’s in International Relations at Leiden University encourages critical perspectives on complexities of culture as an inextricable part of global politics.

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.

Beyond the immediately visible plenum, parliaments are highly complex institutions. They work through various venues in which decisions are prepared or even taken. The two main institutions in this regard are parliamentary party groups, which comprise legislators who are elected under the same party…

The project investigates the implementation of policies and practices related to reconciliation and the strengthening of government capacity in the Odesa and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine.

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?

An interdisciplinary collection of the best international scholarship on Muslim youth.

Introducing five papers about of the impact of crises on the governance, decision-making, and institutional design of the Euro Area, political scientists Valerie D'Erman (University of Victoria, Canada), Paul Schure (University of Victoria, Canada) and Amy Verdun (Leiden University) summarise the 'lessons…

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study phenomena such as migration, immigration, citizenship, integration, ethnic parties, minority and caste-based politics, borders and migration,…

Political scientist Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) analyses the background and implications of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

Interview with political scientist Hans Vollaard (Leiden University) about “Nexit” speculations, the strengths and weaknesses of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom, and the general attitude towards Europe in the Netherlands.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi admires Israel’s achievements, but structural differences between Indian and Israeli national security situations, differences in the leaders’ worldviews and the absence of a common enemy inhibits stronger strategic rapprochement, argues political scientist Nicolas…

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…

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).

How is Indian foreign policy made? This special issue of the journal India Review, edited by political scientists Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) and Avinash Paliwal (SOAS University of London) features a number of interesting case studies that bridge the gap between Foreign Policy Analysis and India’s…

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.

The Leiden Political Economy Group (L-PEG) is a multi-disciplinary network of scholars with a research interest in (comparative / global) political economy based at Leiden University. Our members belong to various institutes and faculties across Leiden University, and from other universities across…

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).

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…