How can video games be used as feminist tactical media to expose the root of exclusions (based on sex, gender, class, race, ability, etc.) pervasive to gaming communities?

In the last couple of decades an ‘animal turn’ has taken place in the social sciences. This has led to a call to study social issues by including non-human animal perspectives. This Collaborative Research Group thinks it's high time that African Studies joins the chorus of minds that try to contribute…

How to explain variation in the extent to which parliamentary voting behaviour follows the government–opposition divide? Party Politics article by Tom Louwerse et al.

This dissertation studies the construction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a cultural icon in American memory, particularly by FDR himself.

On Wednesday 11 June 2025 Steffie van Gompel successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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…

Imagining the Americas in Print contains eleven essays, seven of which have been published before and four of which are new.

Are terrorist suspects willing to reintegrate back into society? Can they reintegrate?

LUCIS’ research on Islam and society is guided by three overarching themes, which are fundamental to our research programmes.

This book examines how Muslim communities in the Netherlands perceive and experience extremism, counter-radicalisation policies, and Islamophobia.

Right-wing ideology is a dominant force in Israel today. Between 2009 and 2021, and again since 2023, Likud-led governments headed by Benjamin Netanyahu consolidated their vision for the country’s identity and its place in the Middle East. Radicalized Conservatism in Israel presents this vision’s ideological…

This book aims to understand cultural transitions and negotiations between art and politics from 1989 to 2020 through analysis of a series of Cuban novels.

This article presents a new dyadic approach to studying voting behaviour in the Council of the European Union.

The project explores the role of modernization theory in the development of two foreign and domestic service programs: the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA).

Despite the fact that transnational movement and intercultural encounter are the signs of our present time, questions of belonging and legitimation of citizenship in most West-European countries still largely depend on monolingual norms and the problematic conflation of the idea of a national language…

Chenyu Cheng defended her thesis on 6 April 2017.

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

Thanks to its early civilisation and continuous mix of influences, the Muslim world has a rich and varied culture. The study of material culture, books, stories, films and increasingly television series teaches us about the structure of modern-day Muslim societies.

How did parties as political organizations emerge?

This subproject, carried out by post-doctoral researcher Dr. O. Nieuwenhuyse, investigates changes and continuities in the functional, social and symbolic uses of the material culture, c. 6800-5800 BC. A contextually oriented approach is adopted, which pays attention to the local socio-economic and…

Understanding the evolving landscape of extremism in the 21st century.

Bij de Universiteit Leiden zet onze Onderzoeksgroep violence and violence prevention zich in voor het bevorderen van kennis en begrip op het gebied van geweld en geweldpreventie door middel van interdisciplinaire wetenschappen en innovatieve methodologieën. Onze faculteitsleden zijn toonaangevende…

How to minimalize the chance of recidivism for extremist prisoners.

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

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

A thorough description of the relationships among languages and their social environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective, involves attention to the agency of local actors, and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them.

Historicising Art and Literature is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

The Violence and Violence Prevention research group investigates the complexity of contemporary violence, its various manifestations, and strategies for prevention.

LUCIS publishes two peer-reviewed book series, “Leiden Studies in Islam and Society” (Brill) and “Debates on Islam and Society” (Leiden University Press).

Sanne Dokter-Mersch defended her thesis on Thursday 15 April 2021.

Representing Japanese Colonial 'Heritage' in Taiwan

Assembling State, Space and Society on the Urban Margins in Morocco

The Department of World Archaeology is a lively pluriform community that explores various theoretical and methodological approaches, applies cutting-edge technologies, creates and maintains international networks across the globe, and unites researchers of many different backgrounds.

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

This is special issue of the journal Language & Communication. The papers of this issue delve into the multifaceted realm of (non)belonging.

How were (post) colonial migrants included in post-war welfare systems?

This book investigates how gay-identified immigrants and refugees experience feelings of inclusion or exclusion within a sexually-charged online subculture. Explores the response of ethnic minorities to demonstrations of racism and xenophobia within an intolerant European climate. Challenges political…

This book presents an understanding of the concept of Countering Violent Extremism from a critical terrorism studies perspective using case studies from different countries while examining the issues it raises.

This thesis examines the complexity of legislative decisions within the EU, with a specific focus on the Council of the EU.

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

On November 22nd, Morana Lukač succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Morana on this great result.

In this article, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Louise Carthy conduct further research into the understanding of the causes of terrorism by assessing differences and similarities between left-, right- and jihadist extremists and terrorists. The article draws on the Analysen zum Terrorismus, one of the most…

This research paper seeks to examine the nature of the nexus between right-wing extremism and the military by surveying five potential consequences (i.e., problem areas) arising from the presence of right-wing extremists within the armed forces of twelve Western countries.

This dissertations studies state-society relations in 1930s Turkey, focusing on the anti-veiling campaigns in the mid-1930s and aiming to understand the ways in which the Kemalist policies were received, interpreted, negotiated, compromised and/or resisted by various actors in the provinces.

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

Eva Michaels & Monika Sus examines European Strategic Autonomy (ESA) as the EU’s response to the fragmentation of the Liberal International Order.

De Pagus Renensis van de 4de tot de 8ste eeuw na Chr.: Een archeologische synthese

On 30 January 2024 Jurre van der Meer successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This dissertation explores how domestic political power struggles in Greece and Turkey during the Cold War engaged with the ongoing conflict in Cyprus and aims to demonstrate how socialist parties in Greece and Turkey struggled with the concept of the “nation” in battling for power and political positioning…