This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

This project explored the role of material culture, in casu painted plaster and its technologies, in expressing dynamic social identities and in forging complex interwoven human relationships in the context of the Middle to Late Bronze Age of the Aegean and East Mediterranean.

To argue that people can control the relative contributions of goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes to decision-making and action selection.

Cynthia van Vonno, political scientist at Leiden University, explains why individual MPs vote according to the party group line.

Social and Behavioural Sciences

Videos shared on social media have become important evidence to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable. What does this increased use of digital open source evidence mean for the quality of international human rights accountability? Through an innovative experimental design, this project…

There are strict conditions relating to work for third parties.

This research project is funded by a subsidy from Instituut Gak.

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Both play and politics have the potential to create worlds in which new rules apply, meanings are created, and possibilities emerge for collaboration, strategy and creative solutions. In this sense, play and politics have always been very much alike. But what happens to this kinship in a post-digital…

The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto

Under what circumstances do paramilitary groups limit their use of political violence? This article examines the use of political violence by the PIRA.

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

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.

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.

Researchers from the Institute of Public Administration study the mechanism of lobbying and influencing political parties and the behaviour of these parties to see how solutions are found to problems. This enables them to reach conclusions as to how best to effect changes in political focus and poli…

Political scientists Tom van der Meer, Lisa Janssen (University of Amsterdam) and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) analyse polls presented by the main polling agencies in the Netherlands, as well as micro-level panel data. They reach three main conclusions. First, vote intention polls in the Netherlands…

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…

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.

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

Political and social implications of life in a digital age.

This project compares and contrasts how and why several Turkish and Iranian women were compelled to participate in leftist guerilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

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…

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

Many of the big challenges of the 21st century (climate change, international migration, financial instability, socio-economic inequality) find their origins in the organisation of the global economy. Any solution to the world’s big challenges therefore requires forceful policy interventions at the…

Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany defended her thesis on 16 September 2014.

Leiden University publishes an overview of the ancillary positions of its professors.

To address the relevance of Christianity to the ideological negotiations with the officially established authority, this research will be conducted by asking how the history enthusiasts negotiate the Christianity-related ideology through reconstructing the Christian past and reproducing religious histories…

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

All players on the world stage operate strategically in order to safeguard their interests. Political scientists at Leiden University cast light on this volatile interplay of forces. Their research helps voters, NGOs, governments and international organizations make smart choices in this complex and…

The Global Politics of Confucianism, a monograph contracted with Columbia University Press, analyzes the interaction between Confucianism and globalism in past and present, using history to critically engage Confucianism’s place in contemporary international relations and policy debates.

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…

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…

Political scientist Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University) and computational sociolinguist Dirk Hovy (University of Copenhagen) analyse how much hostility and sexism Clinton faces on Twitter, as well as who seems to be behind such attacks.

Social and Behavioural Sciences, Political Science

Organizations often announce their protest activities prior to their implementation to mobilize awareness, recruit supporters, and receive media attention. We are interested in the effectiveness of protest announcements—that is, under what conditions governments make concessions to avoid having an announced…