In the Public Administration specialisation in Policy, Governance and Organisation, you will analyse current issues such as the housing crisis, energy transition, and immigration. You will learn how policy is developed and how public organisations function from various perspectives.

The Administration and Central Services department supports the Executive Board and is responsible for policy and decision-making.

Research Network Institute for History 2026-2029

Within the Public Administration department, there is an option for a specialisation: Economics, Public Administration and Management. This is a dutch program.

Political scientist Maurits de Jongh (Leiden University/Sciences Po) argues that political liberalism is self-defeating as a framework of justification for liberal conceptions of justice. He explores how the framework's self-imposed criterion of acceptability in the eyes of all reasonable citizens leads…

Constitutional and administrative law is a specialisation of the master’s programme Rechtsgeleerdheid (Law) at the renowned Leiden Law School of Leiden University. This programme looks closely at the interaction between national and European law.

Are you thinking about studying Public Administration: Economics and Governance? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying Public Administration: International and European Governance? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying Public Administration: Public Management and Leadership? Learn more and watch the videos.

Why obey the state? Dorota Mokrosińska presents a fresh analysis of the most influential theories of political obligation and develops a novel approach to this foundational problem of political philosophy, an intriguing combination of the elements of natural duty and associative theories.

How did parties as political organizations emerge?

Profile Area Political Legitimacy, Leiden University

This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden…

How does the social infrastructure affect administrative burdens associated with digital government services? The paper 'Administrative burden in digital public service delivery: The social infrastructure of library programs for e-inclusion' published in the Review of Policy Research by Sarah Giest…

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

The Institute of Political Science is a vibrant department with nearly 70 academic staff in Leiden and nearby The Hague.

In what ways do historical and current events affect how we should judge the legitimacy of political authorities?

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 public sector is increasingly a multi-level system, with interactions between public and private actors on the national, sub-national (provinces, regions) and international level and various public, semi-public and private organisations that perform public tasks. In this minor students pay attention…

Are you thinking about studying Political Science? Watch the introduction video’s and learn more!

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.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

At the Institute of Political Science we value our alumni. We can learn from you, and would like to contribute to your further development. And, of course, we want to lend a hand in connecting ‘our’ political scientists all over the world.

Hegemony and World Order explores a key question for our tumultuous times of multiple global crises.

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

The first results of the “Policing European Metropolises project” (PEMP) that associate Professor Elke Devroe and Professor P. Ponsaers launched in April 2013 are now published. Having been the referent for The Netherlands and Belgium in the Urbis project (Leonardo programme), the project focuses on…

On Wednesday 13 December 2017 Jaap Wieland defended his doctoral thesis entitled ‘De bescherming van concurrentiebelangen in het bestuursrecht’ (the Protection of Competition Interests in Administrative Law).

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

On 27 September 2017 a new book by Prof. Luuk van Middelaar appeared, entitled The new politics of Europe. The book is at the same time a front line account of Europe’s recent crisis years – from monetary turmoil to tensions around Ukraine, from refugee crisis to Brexit – and an analysis of the Union’s…

Discover the admission requirements for the MSc in International Politics at Leiden University in The Hague: bachelor degree, 80 ECTS in political science, and English language proficiency (IELTS/TOEFL).

Choice is at the very heart of politics. War or peace, left or right, liberty or security, sovereignty or integration, consensus or conflict—choices matter. Choice is also key to your education. Choose an intellectually challenging programme in which you develop your knowledge and expertise in the study…