How many men and women die per year at the hands of others? What are the motives behind these killings? Are there as many homicides today as years ago? How can we explain the rise and fall of homicides over time? And: What is the influence of (early) childhood and adolescence on the likelihood to commit…

Physical Violence refers to violence related to criminal activities, violence perpetrated in interpersonal conflict such as in the domestic sphere, and socio-political violence. It ranges from mass shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, to nighttime violence, alcohol-related violence, violent…

Research into 25 years of lethal violence in the Netherlands and into language socialisation of deaf families in Africa will receive grants from the Leiden University Fund (LUF).

How do balanced lethal systems originate and persist in nature?

Project TARGET aims to improve our understanding of gun violence in Europe and the relationship between gun violence and firearms trafficking.

To assess the impact of illicit firearms trafficking on gun violence, this research looks at the scope, characteristics and contexts of firearm violence, and also the scope and nature of firearms trafficking in Europe since the new millennium. Nils Duquet, Dennis Vanden Auweele and Marieke Liem created…

Firearms and violence in Europe–A systematic review by Katharina Krüsselmann, Pauline Aarten, Marieke Liem

The research group on terrorism and political violence studies the phenomena of terrorism-related and other politically motivated violence.

This minor will focus on interpersonal violence (i.e. violence taking place between individuals), the most common types including physical violence and sexual violence.

Why do certain incidents of serious violence end lethally whereas others do not? What role do personal characteristics of offenders and victims play and how do immediate situational factors influence outcomes?

In this project, we seek to assess, map and understand the risk factors associated with fatal domestic violence.

A mother who is far from the romantic ideal image of the mother as we know is the murderous mother. Genevieve Lhermitte, the mother who killed her 5 children, or the neurosurgeon who killed her 14-year-old daughter whose trial recently ended are examples of shocking stories. It goes against every thought…

Can conspiracy constructions explain for hatred of the system? And if so, should conspiracy constructions be considered to be a risk in terms of national security?

This study focuses on violence involving juveniles in conflict with the law who are deprived of their liberty in different institutions within the framework of the (juvenile) criminal justice system (inter alia, police detention, pre-trial detention and deprivation of liberty after conviction or sen…

The illegal use of hand grenades has generated a lot of public interest over the last few years but very little is known about the nature and extent of these incidents. This research project is trying to fill that gap.

The aim of this project is to study what makes an act or form of violence a specifically political reality.

On 29 September 2020, Tom van Ham defended his thesis 'Collective violence offenders and offending. The role of individual characteristics'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.A.J. Blokland, Prof. O.M.J. Adang (RUG) and Prof. Th.A.H. Doreleijers (VUMC).

On Tuesday 23 May 2017, Jasmina Mackic defended her doctoral thesis ‘Proving discriminatory violence at the European Court of Human Rights’. The supervisor of the research is Vice Dean and Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik. A brief summary of her thesis is provided below.

French title: Communication et violences dans le Guéra et le Moyen-Chari (Tchad) de 1940 à 2010. This research investigates the relationship between the introduction of new means of communication and violence experienced by the local populations in the Moyen-Chari and the Guéra regions in Chad from…

The position of child victims, globally and in Liberia and their right to physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration covered by art. 39 CRC.

This article written by Marieke Liem & Alexander Kamprad investigates the relationship between terrorism and interpersonal violence. They conducted cross-national analyses on the effects of terrorism mortality rates on homicide rates. Results showed that terrorism appears to be robustly and positively…

This research examines the social, political, and cultural forces that structure people’s responses towards accented speech, and further uses the accent as a focal point to theorize the interrelation between language and body.

In the academic year 2021-2022 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer two courses for interested students who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. You can sign up for these courses in your elective (minor) space. The courses are available to students…

Jasmina Mačkić, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Law at the Europa Institute, has published her book, Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in May 2017 and which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation…

Grace Leksana defended her thesis on 26 May 2020.

Violence during war often involves upswings and downturns that have, to date, been insufficiently explained. Why does violence at a particular point in time increase in intensity and why do actors in war decrease the level of violence at other points? Duyvesteyn discusses the potential explanatory variables…

This study looks at population response to government containment strategies during initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in four high-trust Northern European countries–Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden–with special emphasis on expressions of governmental trust.

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. The announcement went down well with students: the available…

How have British, Dutch, and German security services dealt with political violence and terrorism since the late 1960s; to what extent did they consider these new phenomena as a task and how have they developed activities in order to counter these security threats?

Lezing

This initiative is intended to support generative research collaborations between and among scholars located in different geographical regions who wish to pursue focused, joint projects in any area of the study of religion.

The European Commission awarded the project proposal INSIGHT, a follow-up project on illegal firearms trafficking and gun violence from Professor Social Resilience and Security Marieke Liem and PhD-researcher Katharina Krüssselmann of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA).

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. You can register for this minor (from 2 May) in your…

Ben Wielstra studies balanced lethal systems, in which half of the offspring die before birth. In the journal Current Biology, he explains in an accessible way how such a disadvantage can originate in nature.

Policy Note Insecurity in Burkina Faso – beyond conflict minerals: The complex links between artisanal gold mining and violence

Ben Wielstra strives to unravel the evolution of balanced lethal systems. On 1 February he started his own lab at the Institute of Biology Leiden. Wielstra is one of five researchers at Leiden University who has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2018 by the European Research Council. ERC Starting…

The out of control ‘Project X’ event in Haren, hooligans who arrange to meet up to fight and beach riots at the Hoek van Holland: group violence is increasingly hitting the headlines. Are those who took part seasoned criminals? And what characteristics do group offenders have? PhD defence on 29 September…

This minor will focus on interpersonal violence (i.e. violence taking place between individuals), the most common types including physical violence and sexual violence.

How did the Chinese in Indonesia respond to anti-Chinese violence and changing political conditions during the Indonesian revolution?

Macrophages – the front line of our immune system – protect us from infections. But in the case of the tuberculosis bacteria, this often goes wrong. The group of Annemarie Meijer from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that macrophages in zebrafish are better able to eliminate tuberculosis…

Why is it that women less often stand trial for murder or for the planning of a murder than men? Marieke Liem was interviewed by Dutch radio programme ‘Radio EenVandaag’ on 20 November 2018.

The minors offered by the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague are closely linked to the defining image of The Hague as a city of international justice, peace and security as well as the centre of Dutch public administration and international governance.

On January 1, the research group Physical Violence and Public Order was launched. Previously part of the group Terrorism and Political Violence, the new group focuses on violence ranging from mass shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, to domestic violence, alcohol-related violence, violent…

Firearms and violence in Europe–A systematic review by Katharina Krüsselmann, Pauline Aarten, Marieke Liem

The first year students of Bachelor Security Studies finished their final block with the course Integrated Project 1. As part of the programme's teaching philosophy ‘Explore, Understand, Do’, students were required to combine the knowledge and understanding they’d gathered throughout their first year,…