In this special edition of Information Polity there is a focus on the transparency challenges of using algorithms in government in decision-making procedures at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels.

The government’s intention to be more transparent following the childcare benefits scandal is long overdue according to Annemarie Drahmann, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law. One of the problems behind the benefits scandal was the lack of openness of the authorities. The government…

On 19 May 2022, a debate was held in the Tweede Kamer (Dutch House of Representatives), during which Prime Minister Rutte was questioned about the news that he removed text messages from his phone on a daily basis. The Prime Minister announced during the debate that the Dutch advisory body on transparency…

Edward Elgar

It recently became clear that the Dutch Ministry of Health would rather pay a penalty than share information about the controversial face mask deal with former CDA party activist Sywert van Lienden. Dutch news site Nieuwsuur reports that this is no exception. In recent years newspaper De Volkskrant…

Are you curious of how the university and the faculty work? Read more about that on this page.

This article by Honorata Mazepus and Florian van Leeuwen in the journal Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions looks at how evaluations of authorities were influenced by four aspects of a governmental response to a hypothetical disaster.

In this article, Tokdemir & Klein examine the strategic actions of governments against domestic terrorist groups and domestic terrorist groups’ reactions to such actions.

Ruling Overseas: Connected Practices of Governance of Law

The importance of diversity and inclusion within society and its institutions can never be understated. In an interdependent, globalised world, we are more connected than ever but we also face the risks of being more polarized than ever due to misunderstanding and misinformation. It is, therefore, incumbent…

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

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…

In the track Cybersecurity Governance, you will be familiarized with the breadth, depth and complexity of cybersecurity challenges. This track seeks to provide you state-of-the art with knowledge of governance and regulatory strategies available to address these challenges.

In this article, James Shires and Tatiana Tropina, assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, map the relationship between gender equality and cybersecurity governance as a component of good security sector governance (SSG). Here, it highlights the way in which cybersecurity…

There are three institutes at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs:

Artificial intelligence could help make the work of public sector organisations, professionals, policy- and decision makers more effective, more efficient, and ideally could make it more rationalised and evidence-based.

The use of increasingly large and diverse datasets to guide urban climate action has implications for how, and by whom, local governments are held accountable.

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

17 November 2021. Jan Aart Scholte and co-researcher Hortense Jongen presented their work on 'Institutional Sources of Legitimacy in Multistakeholder Governance at ICANN' at the annual conference of the Netherlands Institute of Governance in Utrecht.

Emerging from the first wave relatively unscarred to an increase in infections. This research analyses the response from the Bulgarian government to Covid-19.

Article by Annemarie Samuels in History and Anthropology

Governance is a complex puzzle of organisations, people and divergent interests. Academic research in this field furthers our knowledge of the role of public administrators, of different organisational structures, of the people who work at such organisations and of how these organisations implement…

How to explain variation in the extent to which parliamentary voting behaviour follows the government–opposition divide? Party Politics article by Tom Louwerse et al.

Having encountered a series of shocks that pose an existential threat to our livelihoods, our societies have become increasingly polarized. Shortly after two years of lockdowns due to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine boosted at a global scale a polycrisis that intersects energy shortages, refugees,…

In this thesis unconventional tools based on fluidic interfaces were developed to study the surface and interfacial chemistry of graphene, to characterize the intrinsic properties of graphene, to disentangle the effects of substrate and of the environmental factors, and to improve handling protocols…

Knowledge that benefits society is the domain of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). FGGA provides high-quality interdisciplinary education on and research into social and governance issues such as terrorism, organisation of public administration, climate change and economic crises.

In the Governance of Sustainability programme you learn to become a future ‘change maker’ who is able to develop governance solutions to major and complex environmental sustainability challenges.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has decided to nominate Prof. Dr. Kutsal Yesilkagit dean of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, from 1 January 2016 on for a period of 3 years.

The public sector is increasingly a multi-level system, with interactions between public and private actors on the national, sub-national (provinces, regions) and international level and various public, semi-public and private organisations that perform public tasks. In this minor students pay attention…

On 2 Juni 2021, Maarten Manse defended his thesis 'Promise, Pretence and Pragmatism: Governance and Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1870-1940'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R. Arendsen.

From 1 January 2016 Faculty Campus The Hague will have a new name: the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). This new name is a logical blend of the elements that make up the faculty.

This article explores levels and patterns of legitimacy beliefs with respect to multistakeholder global governance at ICANN. From a large and systematic evidence base, Jongen & Scholte have found that ICANN has strong legitimacy underpinnings among its staff and board, as well as quite uniformly moderate-to-high…

With regard to governance, policies and law, many Muslims and Muslim countries recognise the possibility that Islam has something important to say about the way society is to be ordered, governed, and regulated.

This pilot project will initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilized to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. Climate adaptation strategies frequently include the sourcing of heritage, encompassing landscapes, built environments 4 and cultural practices. However, effective…

Whilst government’s ability to design ‘context-specific’ regional innovation policy is generally assumed to depend on the region’s decision-making power, the aim of this study is to investigate how regional government matters. In order to open up the black box of policy design, the study develops a…

The engagement of civil society with the state as well as the organizational and political capacities of civil society itself constitute the key focus of research programme Public Governance & Civil Society. As such, this research programme offers unique expertise within the field of public administration…

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

Data Science seminar at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

No nation-state can solve today's global challenges on its own. In the specialisation International and European Governance you will obtain a deep understanding of the interplay between the international, EU, and (sub)national governance systems and how this interplay affects a national government's…

The Economics and Governance specialisation of the Master in Public Administration teaches you to formulate problem-solving approaches to concrete policy issues found at the intersection between economics and public administration. This specialisation is a unique joint offering of the Department of…

Growing health inequalities, rising healthcare costs, an ageing population and a shortage of healthcare personnel are just a few of the many challenges healthcare faces, in the Netherlands and internationally. To tackle these challenges an interdisciplinary approach is required by combining knowledge…

The idea of global governance and trust in international institutions are apparently getting into deep water. But is there a legitimacy crisis? Not according to international élites, as Jan Aart Scholte (Leiden University), Soetkin Verhaegen (Maastricht University) and Jonas Tallberg (Stockholm University)…

How are law and governance in China responding to rapidly changing circumstances, and what does that mean for the relationship between the state and its citizens?

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) is pleased to introduce a new research seminar series. The FGGA Research Seminar will be a forum for the presentation and discussion of current, high-quality research on topics covered by the faculty.

Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) asks how international organisations can be compelled to comply with respect human rights. She finds that this is done through ‘pluralist accountability’: external third parties such as courts, NGOs, or regional organisations holding international…

Become a migration expert! Migration, including refugee migration, is a key issue in current and past political and societal debates.

On 31 August 2022, a delegation from the Korean Ministry of Government Legislation visited the International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) at Leiden University as part of their official visit to the Netherlands. The delegation’s visit was aimed at exchanging knowledge and experience on interaction…