In this article, Joris Larik and Richard Ponzio grasp the importance of the Summit of the Future to overhaul and strengthen multilateral cooperation in an age of deepening rifts and increasing competition between the great powers. This article argues that a failure to convene a meaningful and ambitious…

In this article, the authors analyse two major factors that deepen informality, namely multipolar geopolitics and the rise of non-state actors.

On 7 October, the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics was launched on the margins of an informal EU leaders’ summit in Prague. The initiative will provide a hub for high-quality research on Europe’s geopolitics, thus enabling the European Union to develop its strategic capacities.

With its Green Deal The European Union has set itself much-needed ambitious climate goals. But the energy crisis and geopolitical tensions are making these difficult to achieve. Seven researchers from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities (LDE) alliance have written a white paper offering solutions.

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights

Seminar programme

The research addresses the question of “what is the impact of geopolitical changes to the pivot states in the Middle East? With special focus on Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

By 2050, we can obtain 40 per cent of our demand for scarce earth metals from old smartphones, batteries, and wind turbines. This is crucial because otherwise, we may not have enough to accomplish the energy transition. An international team of researchers from China, the UK, and Leiden's Tomer Fishman…

How we think about and act on the usefulness of scientific research has epistemological and political implications: what knowledge consists of, how it comes about and to what ends. In this dissertation, I situate the usefulness of scientific research in concrete places for knowledge exchange. The exchange…

In this research I assess the impact of the recently discovered gas reserves south off Cyprus on the escalation of the Cyprus conflict.

Caribbean archaeological heritage is threatened by natural impacts but also increasingly by economic developments, often resulting from the tourist industry. The continuous construction of specific projects for tourists, accompanied by illegal practices such as looting and sand mining, have major impacts…

This programme examines cultural space, national identity and the politics of tangible and intangible heritage in Islamic Central Asia.

Following Trump’s resounding victory over his Republican arch-rival in Iowa, it's clear that standing by passively and giving Biden the benefit of the doubt is not an option. Luuk van Middelaar, Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union and its Institutions, warns in his column in…

Alumni event, Lecture for Leiden Alumni living on the West Coast USA

The purpose of the initiative is to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University. Central Asia is a region with fluid borders stretching into present-day Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Iran and the Caucasus; a premodern highway of global interaction and today increasingly important as…

The Issues beneath the Surface

The Central Asia Initiative is funded by the Leiden research profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions with the purpose to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University.

This volume is pubished in the IMISCOE-AUP Series and edited by Marlou Schrover and Deirdre M. Moloney.

Yuxi Nie defended her thesis on 15 October 2019.

After a successful second conference in June 2023, GTGC is pleased to announce its third annual Conference at Leiden University's Campus The Hague on 5-7 June 2024.

Bob van Grieken and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz published an article in the journal Geopolitics which explores the determinants of China's official financing of Pacific Island states.

This book argues that Dutch Brazil (1624–54) is an integral part of Atlantic history and that it made an impact well beyond colonial and national narratives in the Netherlands and Brazil.

In this book, Vanessa Newby provides the first detailed examination of credibility’s essential place in peacekeeping.

Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) at Leiden University aims to advance knowledge and practice on how we govern – and could govern – major world-scale changes in contemporary society. These global transformations include hegemonic and other geopolitical shifts, ecological changes,…

Changing the world (a little bit)

This book questions the accepted origins of the field of International Relations (IR). Commonly understood to have emerged from the horrors of WW1 with the goal of bringing about world peace, the authors argue that on the contrary, IR came from a somewhat less noble tradition – that of the Round Tab…

On 29 april 2020, Beth Van Schaack defended her thesis 'Imagining Justice for Syria: Water Always Finds Its Way'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C. Stahn.

This paper, like the seminar on which it is based, considers how the governance of transnational critical information infrastructure (CII) could be approached at the global level. It suggests that when one is thinking about the (potential) governance of CII, it is important to recognise that not all…

Many conflicts in Africa have been studied and described as location and time bound. Yet conflict is rarely confined and contained, and instead reaches across communities, borders, and generations.

LENS is engaged in the drawing up a cartography of the mediascape, past and present, researching the dispositifs and ecologies of image production and presentation, which stretch across diverse geo-political areas as well as institutional, discursive and technological fields.

This edited volume explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming international conflict in cyberspace.

How do borderland dwellers living along militarised frontiers negotiate regimes of state security and their geopolitical location in everyday life? What might 'freedom' mean to those who do not resist captivity engendered by borders? Focusing on the predicaments of a double-minority, Radhika Gupta examines…

This article tries to examine if one can take the 'One Net' for granted, since the world becomes increasingly fragmented with social and geopolitical tensions. Furthermore, the author seeks to discover what is at stake if the global interoperable network is under a threat of fragmentation.

The corona crisis is also a disinformation crisis for the global community in general, and for the European Union (EU) in particular. What is less clear is how adequate the EU’s response to the ‘infodemic’ has been. This essay exposes the dangers of disinformation for the EU, which have intensified…

The minor Global Affairs is built on two pillars of International Relations: International Security and International Political Economy. This minor aims to provide students with the tools and knowledge to understand the most important global trends and challenges.

Global challenges require global governance answers. That’s why on 5 - 7 June, the interdisciplinary research programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) has chosen the theme 'Emerging Trends in Global Governance' for its annual conference. Researchers, students and practitioners…

Otrar as a Case Study for a 6-10th century Transition Zone

This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

The focus of this programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide.

A measured yet theoretically innovative exploration of how Islamophobia and radicalisation intersect and reinforce each other.

Research on this theme addresses the systemic risks faced by European societies and affecting the quality of life of European citizens.

Ludo Block wrote the eleventh chapter of the book 'Post-Crimea Shift in EU-Russia Relations: From Fostering Interdependence to Managing Vulnerabilities'. His chapter 'Business as Usual? Police Cooperation under a Cloud of Political Animosity' can be found on page 204 of the book.

This dissertation studies the formation of the wage laboring class in the Iranian oil industry during the first decades of the 20th century.

What should the EU do to support Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova? How can the European Union adapt its policies towards these countries in a very difficult and challenging geopolitical context?

The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted…

How was anti-communism organized in the West? New volume edited by Giles Scott-Smith, Luc van Dongen and Stephanie Roulin on the aims, arguments and associations of a range of transnational anti-communist activists during the Cold War.

The debate in Europe about digital sovereignty, technological sovereignty, data sovereignty and strategic autonomy has been building over recent years at both the EU level and the level of individual Member States. The different concepts – and their diverse interpretations – cover the sovereignty concerns…