Admission requirements
Mandatory course for students enrolled in the bachelor’s programme Security Studies. Only students of the Bachelor Security Studies can take this course.
This course is also open for inbound exchange students. Exchange students must be admitted by the FGGA International Office prior to the start of the course.
Description
Economics and security are deeply intertwined. Economic thinking shapes the way we understand, debate, and manage safety and security issues. And virtually every aspect of security, from sanctions to climate change, has economic dimensions. This course will explore these complex interconnections. Students will be encouraged to critically examine the behavioral assumptions of economic models and how they are applied to safety and security domains. Further, we will explore how economics both shapes, and is shaped by, conflict, cooperation, and contemporary statecraft.
Course objectives
After this course students are able to:
Understand the economic dimensions of safety and security in terms of cause, effect, and impact on individual, group, and societal level.
Acquire basic knowledge and understand economic dimensions of governing security and safety in terms of governance strategies, practices and dilemmas.
Apply basic economic concepts to security and/or safety challenges and governance strategies.
Identify and evaluate the economic dimensions of security challenges and strategies and construct a logical judgement about these.
Construct informed arguments on economics of security in both academic and professional contexts.
Timetable
On the right side of the programme front page you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
7 plenary lectures.
4 course labs in smaller groups.
Attendance of the course labs is mandatory. If you miss more than 1 course lab you fail the course and won’t obtain a final grade.
Total study load of 140 hours
Contact hours: 33
Self-study hours (including assignments): 104
Examination: 3
Assessment method
Written Mid-term Assignment
25% of final grade
Grade must be compensated
Resit is not possible
In-class Participation
15% of final grade
Grade must be compensated
Resit is not possible
Final Written Exam
60% of final grade
Grade must be 5.50 or higher
Resit of a fail is possible
Resit will take the same form
Attendance of the course labs is mandatory. If you miss more than 1 course lab you fail the course and won’t obtain a final grade.
Students will also be permitted to resit the final written exam (50%) if they have a calculated overall course grade lower than 5.50.
Passed partial grades obtained in the 2024-2025 academic year remain valid during the 2025-2026 academic year. Students who did not meet the course lab attendance requirements in 2024-2025 are required to attend the course labs in 2025-2026. Students who participated in this course in the academic year 2024-2025 but did not obtain a sufficient overall grade to pass the course are strongly encouraged to re-attend lectures.
Please be aware that passed partial grades obtained in academic year 2025-2026 are no longer valid during academic year 2026-2027.
Reading list
A selection of books and articles will be announced on Brightspace.
Registration
Register yourself via MyStudymap for each course, workgroup and exam (not all courses have workgroups and/or exams).
Do so on time, before the start of the course; some courses and workgroups have limited spaces. You can view your personal schedule in MyTimetable after logging in.
Registration for this course is possible from Tuesday 9 December 2025 13:00h
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course. Furthermore, announcements and modifications will be communicated via Brightspace. Students have the responsibility to stay informed and are thus advised to regularly check Brightspace for updates.
More information on registration via MyStudymap can be found on this page.
Please note 1: Registration for the resit of an exam is mandatory, this has to be done by the student and can be done from Monday 4 May 2026 until 10 days before the exam. Until 5 days before the exam you can email OSC and fill in a form.
Please note 2: guest-/contract-/exchange students do not register via MyStudymap but via uSis. Registration via uSis is possible from Thursday 11 December 2025.
Contact
Remarks
For exceptions, please contact the Board of Examiners.