Admission Requirements
Participation in the BAP is only permitted if you passed the first year of Internationale Politiek and completed at least 40 EC of the second year, including the courses Academische Vaardigheden: Onderzoeksontwerp, Statistiek II and Kwalitatieve Onderzoeksmethoden.
Please note: For students who started their Internationale Politiek programme before 1 September 2022 the admission requirements of 2023-2024 are still applicable: (a) first year, (b) 40 EC from year 2, incl (c) Methoden en Technieken van Politicologisch Onderzoek (10 EC) and (d) Academische Vaardigheden: Onderzoeksontwerp (5 EC).
Transition regulations
If a student did not complete Methoden en Technieken van Politicologisch Onderzoek (10 EC) in 2022-2023 or earlier, they should complete Methoden en Technieken van Politicologisch Onderzoek (5 EC, year 1) and Kwalitatieve Onderzoeksmethoden (5 EC, year 2).
Bachelor Project Information meeting
Semester I: The information meeting takes place on Friday 6 June 2025. Students will receive the invitation per mail from the SSC.
Registration for Bachelor Project
Semester I: Students can rank their Bachelor Projects between 14 - 27 July 2025, 23.59h by submitting the Qualtrix form.
Should you have questions regarding the registration, please email the SSC via ssc@leiden.edu
It is only possible to register for one Bachelor project per academic year. Requests for an exception must be addressed to the Board of Examiners. This means the following:
Students who do not pass their BAP in semester I, have to ask the Board of Examiners (BoE) for permission to register for a BAP in semester II (because it is in the same academic year). However, if the BoE does approve the request to register for a second BAP in the same academic year, placement is contingent on availability, and students must retake the first part of the second BAP (even if they passed on their earlier attempt in a previous semester).
Students who do not pass their BAP in semester II, can register without BoE permission for a BAP in semester I of the following academic year.
Language
The thesis of the Bachelor Project Internationale Politiek will be written in English.
If you want to write your thesis in Dutch please consult your BAP teacher in advance.
Description
Goal 1: Learning to apply concepts, theories and methods in a research project that fits within a framework that has been formulated by the teacher in advance;
Goal 2: Conducting, and reporting on, a limited empirical or literature study.
Content: The bachelor project is a course that offers substantive instruction, followed by a research part within which students carry out an individual study. Various projects are offered that are structured around different themes. Students first follow substantive instruction for a number of weeks in which they deepen their knowledge of a specific subject within a subfield of political science. After that, students learn to formulate a research question, to design research to answer that question, to conduct their own research, and to report correctly and clearly on that research.
The final report - the Bachelor's thesis - completes the Bachelor's degree in Political Science. The thesis is an individual final paper based on at least partly on the student’s own, original research.
Mode of Instruction
Workgroup meetings, walk-in meetings, library instruction, and above all self-study.
Library Instruction
On Brightspace you will find more information on the digital module 'Library instruction'.
Study materials
Halperin, S. & Heath, O. (2017) 'Political research: Methods and practical skills' - Oxford University Press, is assumed to be known. The core literature can be found on the Brightspace page of the Bachelor's Project. Further information about the bachelor project and the subprojects will also be available there.
Assessment Method
Students either pass or fail the entire BAP (16 weeks) worth 20 ECTS.
The assignments made in the first, substantive part of the BAP will jointly generate a first partial grade. This grade counts for 40% of the final BAP grade. It is rounded to one decimal. Obtaining a sufficient grade for this part of the BAP is not a necessary condition for passing the course.
The full thesis written in the second, thesis-specific part of the BAP will generate a second partial grade. This counts for 60% of the final BAP grade. It is rounded to whole and half numbers and passed with a 5,5 or higher. Obtaining a sufficient grade for this part of the BAP is a necessary condition for passing the course. This means that a (sufficiently high) partial grade for the second part of the BAP can compensate an insufficient partial grade for the first part of the BAP.
The final grade is the weighted average of both partial grades. In order to pass the entire BAP (20 ECTS), the final grade must be sufficient (i.e. at least 5,5) and, as stated above, the grade for the full thesis must be sufficient (i.e. at least 5,5) as well.
Concerning retakes:
Since the first, substantive part of the BAP counts for less than 50% towards the final grade, students who obtain an insufficient partial grade for that part do not have the right to a retake.
Since the full thesis written in the second, thesis-specific part of the BAP counts for 50% or more towards the final grade, students who obtain an insufficient partial grade for their thesis do have the right to a retake.
Students who obtain a sufficient partial grade for the full thesis written in the second, thesis-specific part of the BAP also have the right to a retake, unless they passed the entire BAP on their first attempt (which means both the final grade and the partial grade for the thesis obtained by them are sufficient).
Students failing the course but having received a sufficient grade for one of the two parts of the course are allowed to take the same BAP next academic year – provided that it is still offered and has not been changed fundamentally (no guarantees or rights here!) – but may skip that part of the course for which they received the sufficient grade. They can, so to speak, “take their sufficient partial grade to next academic year”.
Students failing the course and having received an insufficient grade for both parts of the course have to start all over again next academic year.
Students can follow only 1 BAP per academic year.
Final product:
The thesis. It should be between 7,000-8,000 words. Note that this is the actual required length of the thesis and not 7,000-8,000 plus/minus 10%. Regarding the word count: Everything from introduction to conclusion counts (as picked up by the count in MS Word). The following elements do not count: front page, abstract, table of contents and list of references. Concerning the abstract and table of contents: these are optional.
Deadlines:
BAP semester I: Friday December 19, 2025, 17:00 hrs.
Students who get an insufficient grade for their bachelor thesis – and so fail the entire BAP – have the right to improve their thesis and submit it for a second time. They do so on the basis of the feedback given by the supervisor during a feedback meeting. Note, however, that students are not entitled to any further supervision. The submission deadline for the second chance is:
BAP semester I: Friday February 13, 2026, no later than 17:00 hrs.
There are two important caveats to this:
Students do not have the right to resubmit their thesis if they passed the entire BAP on their first attempt (which means both the final grade and the partial grade for the thesis obtained by them are sufficient).
Students do not have the right to submit their thesis as part of the second chance if they did not submit a completed version of their thesis during the first chance.
Bachelor Project theme:
Semester I:
101 - Democratic Erosion and Resilience (Dr. T. Swalve)
Until recently, scholars often assumed that once a country achieves a certain level of economic and political development, democratic consolidation is permanent. In the past decade, however, the deterioration of liberal democracies worldwide has questioned this assumption, as exemplified by developments in the US, Hungary, Poland, India, and Venezuela.
In this Bachelor Project, students explore the causes and consequences of democratic erosion and resilience in a comparative perspective. In the first part, students will be introduced to recent research on democratic backsliding and resilience. The course literature consists of both quantitative and qualitative scholarship. We will pay particular attention to the following topics:
How can we conceptualize and measure democracy and democratic erosion?
What are drivers and mechanisms of democratic erosion?
Are populist parties a threat to democracy?
How do citizens respond to democratic backsliding?
Why are some societies more resilient to authoritarian challenges than others?
In the second phase of the seminar, students build on the literature to develop their own research project using quantitative methods (e.g., analysis of survey data, data on comparative institutions) or qualitative methods (e.g., comparative case study). The BAP is not suitable for students who want to pursue a thesis based on interpretivist qualitative approaches or political philosophy. Substantively, the BAP covers a large range of possible thesis topics related to democratic institutions, regime transitions, and political economy.