Admission requirements
Mandatory course for students enrolled in the bachelor’s programme Security Studies.
Only students enrolled into the bachelor’s programme Security Studies can follow 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
The focus of this course will be on the challenges posed by war and conflict. Rather than adopting a single disciplinary viewpoint students will be presented with various principles, insights and theories on war and peacebuilding and will be encouraged to approach the topics from a variety of disciplinary angles including international relations, security studies, philosophy, sociology, and history.
This course will explore reasoning related to war and peace and helps students to understand the dynamics of war and peace and key elements of, and developments in, the body of knowledge in this domain. It will assess the nature and character of war, how war and peacebuilding have been studied, and the changes in the way war is waged and peace is brokered and maintained. Finally, the course analyses and applies this body of knowledge to current cases of war and peacebuilding efforts.
Course objectives
At the end of the course students are able to:
Be aware of the range of academic disciplines that may be brought to the study of war and have considered the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of Security Studies.
Acquire knowledge of various theoretical principles, paradigms and concepts used in the field of war and peace studies.
Acquire knowledge and understanding of the actors and stakeholders in the field of war and peace building.
Understand the key issues and concepts arising from scholarly debates in relation to war and peacebuilding.
Have a basic knowledge of the key literature on war and peacebuilding.
Analyse complex conflict situations, and identify various strategies and policies in the field of war and peacebuilding derived from the field of war and peace studies.
Identify and evaluate different disciplines, (research) methods, and strategies and value their applicability for assessing different security challenges.
Timetable
On the right side of the programme front page you will find links to the website and timetables, MyStudymap, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
14 plenary lectures
4 course labs
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 280 hours
Contact hours: 54
Self-study hours: 220
Examination: 6
Assessment method
Mid-Term paper
40% of the final grade.
Grade must be be 5.50 or higher.
Resit of a fail is possible.
Resit will take the same form.
Written Final Exam
60% of the 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.
Transitional arrangement
Passed partial grades obtained in year 2024-2025 remain valid during year 2025-2026. Students who did not meet the course lab attendance requirements in 2024-2025 are required to attend the course labs in 2025-2026.
In the case of written assessment methods, the examiner can always initiate a follow-up conversation with the student to establish whether the learning objectives have been met.
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 13:00.
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 notePlease 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 guest-/contract-/exchange students do not register via MyStudymap but via uSis.
Contact
Dr. Marie Robin m.p.c.e.robin@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Dr. Malte Riemann m.riemann@umail.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
For exceptions, please contact the Board of Examiners.
Please note that only university e-mail addresses and Brightspace will be used to communicate with students. It is the student’s responsibility to check both regularly.
Lectures will not be recorded and students will not be allowed to record lectures.