The objective of the minor Law, Culture and Development is to teach students about the central concepts of law and the connections between law, culture and development.

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,…

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Science with the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute in Ethiopia.

Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies offers a new comprehension of colonial history from below by taking remnants of individual agencies from a whiteness studies perspective. It highlights the experiences and perceptions of colonisers and how they portrayed and re-interpreted their identities in Afric…

Promotores: G.A. Persoon, H.H. de Iongh

Matthias Haentjens and Ross Spence participated in Warsaw conference and PhD workshop on 16 & 17 November 2018.

On 6 June, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration

The rationale, construction, and function of the imperial capitals of Assyria

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

How did the Dutch Empire compare with other imperial enterprises? And how was it experienced by the indigenous peoples who became part of this colonial power?

On young Muslims seeking to understand their place and make their way in a transformed world.

'The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia' explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach.

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Nowadays, most Europeans speak a language belonging to the Indo-European language family. However, very different languages were spoken on our continent before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. The EUROLITHIC project tries to find answers to the question which languages these were and where they came…

Security and Legitimacy is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

The Assyrian Empire was the first state to achieve durable domination of the Ancient Near East, enduring some seven centuries and, eventually, controlling most of the region. Yet, we know little about how this empire emerged from a relatively minor polity in the Tigris region and how it managed to consolidate…

The Case of the Painted Plaster

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

Documenting and describing languages of the world.

The Leiden–Birmingham Strategic Collaboration Fund provides support for colleagues from Leiden University and the University of Birmingham to undertake a research stay at one of the two partner institutions.

In this thesis I describe the results of Pulsed Interleaved Excitation and Fluorescence (Cross) Correlation Spectroscopy (PIE-F(C)CS) combined with single-pair Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (spFRET) used to study dynamics in single nucleosomes, which depends on subtle differences in the length of…

Gold nanorods are biocompatible nanoparticles that present an excellent two-photon signal that can be used to get high spatial resolution inside living cells. Gold nanorods are photostable and therefore can be followed inside cells for long time, with possible applications as trackers in live cells.

What is the iconography of propaganda specifically as it relates to the historical development of political ideologies in modern Egypt and how was/is this propaganda disseminated among creative fields such as cinema, art, monuments, architecture, and literature?

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

On Thursday 10 April 2025 Wahyu Widodo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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

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…

What should a confederal constitution for the EAC look like? What are the legal challenges for making the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) work? And what insights can be drawn in this context from the successes and failures in the EU?

Friday 25 September, 2015 marks the official launch of Leiden University's Central and East European Studies (CEES) Center.

Traces of a Colourful Past

In November, Somalia was the latest country to join the East African Community (EAC). This follows the Democratic Republic of Congo's accession to the regional intergovernmental organisation in March.

An interdisciplinary international consortium to address critical healthcare gaps for older adults in indigenous Dayak communities has been awarded an LDE Global Support grant (INUCoST).

This doctoral thesis is an effort to understand how lipid phase-separation induced by diacylglycerol analogues in lipid-based nanoparticles affects their in vivo behavior, leading to specific nanoparticle-protein communications and selective cell targeting.

In this thesis we investigated the ability of two-photon multifocal microscopy for single-molecule microscopy in live cells and organisms.

The research groups within the biological, soft and complex systems research area study the physics of a broad range of biological and soft materials. This spans both experimental and theoretical research.

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

This thesis explores several aspects of these Early Old Babylonian Amorites.

De menselijke geschiedenis strekt zich ver uit vóór de tijd waarin de mensen opschreven wat er zoal gebeurde.

Research on Inclusiveness and Diversity at the Faculty of Science at Leiden University

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: Dr. V.S.F.T. Merckx