When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has…

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…

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Digital Activism’ by exploring some of the trends in social media activism and scholarship thereof. The authors ask to what extent this literature helps us understand Asian forms of online activism, which forms of activism have relatively done well, and…

This dissertation is a study of North Korean art as a site where politics, history, and culture meet.

Are you thinking about studying Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

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…

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

This project will clarify how these concepts operated in theoretical writings on performance ,this broadened conceptual framework will not only give us a clear view on how sublime effects in performance were theorized, it will also provide us a concrete apparatus to understand the cultural and political…

An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

Who is Economic Man? Every economic paradigm presupposes an anthropology, a theory of human nature. This project explores the anthropologies presupposed and produced by ancient Greek economic texts, and the specific knowledge forms that shape these anthropologies.

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

The goal of this research is to examine the emergence of new types of female representation in nineteenth-century ukiyo-e (woodblock prints from early modern Japan) as these images relate to the ideals of femininity of the time.

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.

This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels.

Now that the new Dutch government's plans are set out on paper, the chess game begins for cabinet formation leader Richard van Zwol. He has to make the next move and put together the ministerial team. But how do you know if you’ve made the right move with the right chess piece? And who is a suitable…

This project examines changes in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century representations of the legendary twelfth-century general Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-1189) and how they reflect not only developments in themes of representation, but also changes in the focus of early modern and modern Japan’s…

This thesis attempts to interrogate post-1991-2015 political development in Ethiopia, focusing on the political discourses espoused by the government and opposition, using the discourse analysis method and securitization theory.

BSc degrees: ‘Political Science’, ‘International Relations and Organisations’. MSc degree: Political Science, with specialisations ‘International Organisation’; ‘Dutch Politics; ‘Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Development’; ‘International Politics’; ‘Political Legitimacy and Justice’; ‘Democracy…

Idrees Kanth defended his thesis on 7 May 2019

When we think of politics, we tend to think of adversary, antagonism, polarisation, a struggle for power. But politics should serve positive purposes, as well. Political psychologist and meditation teacher Femke Bakker (Leiden University) thinks that positive politics is first and foremost about tolerance.…

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.

This research project focuses on the thoughts of ethnicity and political orthodoxy in Medieval China by investigating Wang Tong’s works.

The Dutch-Japanese made DESHIMA instrument has passed its first practical tests when measuring the distances and ages of distant galaxies. The core of the instrument is a chip the size of two euro coins that measures 49 shades of far infrared light. The developers of the spectrometer publish the results…

The Linked In profile of alumnus Arne Driessen describes him as a ‘serial entrepreneur’. After studying Japanese he ended up working for a translation agency, after which he founded his own online marketing company, which he later sold to enable him to do something different again: making offices more…

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…

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

The World Politics Major at Leiden University College The Hague examines the big ideas and the powerful forces – political, military, economic, social and cultural – that shape the world at every level, from the global to the local and everything in between. Political conflict is a key driver of many…

This book compares the policies of Australia and Italy towards boat people who have arrived in the two countries since the early 1990s.