Intelligence scholars have been struggling to find the conditions under which international intelligence cooperation occurs. Most focus on transactional motives and guaranteed returns, the so called ‘Quid pro Quo’. At the same time, trust is often mentioned as one of the foremost conditions, yet it…

This project studies social distance—the degree of sympathetic understanding that exists between people—in relation to state foreign policy making. Does, and if so how does, social distance shape political biases, aid narratives, and, ultimately, state foreign policy priorities and decisions?

Leiden psychologist Wilco van Dijk and communication scientist Jaap Ouwerkerk of VU University Amsterdam published a book about the emotion Schadenfreude. The authors describe what the emotion Schadenfreude really is, when people experience the emotion, and what role it plays in social relations.

Can subgroups of people be differentiated whose attitudes on the Sinterklaas festivities and Black Pete cluster with either a) high Dutch national identification or b) a strong preference for social hierarchy, also known as social dominance orientation (SDO; Pratto et al., 1994)?

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

Why does social anxiety increase in adolescence and how does it grow out of control in some adolescents?

What is the relation between the experience and the act of exclusion?

Building on the recent initiative to truly globalize the field of international relations, this book provides an innovative interrogation of regionalism.

The consequences of social tendencies for the legislation and institutions in the fields of social security, the labor market policy and pension reform are examined in this multdisciplinary research program..

Dissertation

Are there any differences in gaze behavior between high and low socially anxious individuals? What factors influence the relation between social anxiety and gaze behavior?

How do European Dutch think about Kingdom relations? There are all sorts of assumptions about this, but due to a lack of research, we do not really know. That is why, as part of his Chair in Kingdom Relations, Wouter Veenendaal commissioned a thorough opinion survey on Kingdom Relations among European…

The key subject of the Team Economic and Social History is Inequality (at local, national and global levels). We study this from an intersectional perspective: gender, class, ethnicity or race, religion, sexuality, age, ability/disability, citizenship and legal status. We study these categories of power…

What is the neural basis of social decision-making across childhood, adolescence and adulthood and what are the developmental patterns in terms of behavior and brain activation?

When and how does social anxiety develop? How can it go astray in some adolescents? How can we help troubled young people to attend school regularly and return to a normal developmental pathway?

The precise psychobiological mechanisms leading to chronic physiological stress responses have not been sufficiently explained, although stress is a major risk factor for disease and early death. A problem for conventional stress theory is that most of these responses seem to occur in situations without…

Developments in globalization and industrialization continuously push governments, international organizations and NGOs to reexamine the opportunities available to people at all levels of society to attain basic socioeconomic necessities. Research into existing social justice initiatives has shown a…

Understanding the complexities of world affairs requires an ability to think critically and to draw insights from a variety of perspectives, sources, and analytic frames. Leiden University’s Master of Arts in International Relations addresses these needs through distinctive humanities-based training…

This project aims at studying the social media reception of African publications as covered by the most important “altmetric” sources.

Are you thinking about studying International Relations? Learn more about the programme and watch the general introduction video.

Helping people, groups and policymakers navigate the social transitions of our time.

In this chapter of the Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations, Carraro explores how expertise is defined and contested in International Relations.

Why do some children confront social challenges with confidence, whereas others experience difficulties? What is the role of child temperament and child emotional dispositions? What is the role of parenting? This project aims to shed light on the mechanisms explaining shyness and confidence in response…

Sanne Kellij and colleagues systematically reviewed 142 articles, examining evidence for three hypotheses on the relation between victimization and social information processing.

This dissertation takes an important step in understanding the phenomenon of non-take-up of social support and what it means for contemporary social policies.

The Team International Relations and European Studies addresses the interconnections and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic, security and culture from a multidisciplinary perspective rooted in the humanities. More specifically it is concerned with the study of international relations…

What are the developmental pathways to social anxiety (disorder), the causal processes and maintaining factors? How do these factors interact in the development of social anxiety disorder? How can this knowledge be used to design and implement effective preventive intervention programs for youth?

What are the main issues leading to polarisation and division? What is the role of social exclusion in these processes? How can we inform and design better policies to safeguard young people from falling prey to intolerance and polarisation? The DRIVE project, led by Leiden University in The Hague,…

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

International Relations and European Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

This dissertation aims to provide insight in ethnic prejudice in Chinese-Dutch children and the ethnic socialization context they are exposed to through three social-contextual factors, i.e., parents, children’s books, and the COVID pandemic.

At the Young Academy Leiden, we care deeply about fostering social safety at our university. Increasing social safety is of particular importance to early career scholars as they often find themselves in a vulnerable position without a permanent contract, or with a dependence on superiors for progressing…

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

Do you have to be able to say everything on Twitter and Facebook? Is Instagram morally obliged to remove photos from attacks? Should we allow the terrorist group to recruit new members on the internet?

This research aims to investigate how different social forces interact with hydropolitics in the Eastern Nile Basin and what are the constraints of engagement.

This paper will address how digital affordances (Grasseni and Walter 2014) of the interactive documentary are an epistemological tool that shapes and fosters comparative reflections in collaborative ethnographic projects. To do so, I will analyse the process of planning and coding an i-doc (interactive…

Social Citizenship & Migration (SCM) is one of the nine interdisciplinary programmes launched by Leiden University in 2020. It is led by the Faculties of Governance and Global Affairs, Law, Humanities, and Social Science.

Leiden University hosts a wide range of seminars and workshops on themes related to European approaches to societal challenges. Some of these are listed below.