Admission requirements
This course is part of the interdisciplinary minor Violence Studies and as such it is suitable for students from a variety of social science disciplines, including security studies, law, criminology, psychology, and related study programs.
If you want to take part in the minor but are unsure whether it suits your background, please contact the minor coordinator.
Description
This course focuses on collective forms of violence, that is, violence involving groups. Collective violence ranges from gang violence and honour-based violence, to vigilantism, riots, extremism and hate crimes. People often find collective violence difficult to understand. Why would a person join a violent group? How do groups become involved in violence? In addition to answering these questions, we will also discuss the consequences of collective violence for both individuals and societies, as well as effective (but also less effective) prevention, intervention and healing programs. Students will become acquainted with the most prominent theories on collective violence, derived from psychological, sociological, and criminological literature. We will also learn about the different methodological approaches researchers use to study collective violence and what they discovered as a result. We will apply these insights to gain a better understand of the role that groups and group dynamics play in the emergence, development and ending of violence.
Course Objectives
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Identify and apply relevant theories and methodologies to study collective violence;
2. Apply these theoretical perspectives to better understand "real-world" events;
3. Extract core ideas from the literature;
4. Communicate core scientific insights for a lay audience in an infographic.
Timetable
The timetable for this course can be found on MyTimetable.
Mode of Instruction
This course consists of 13 lectures, including guest lectures.
Total study load for 10 ECTS = 280 hours:
26 hrs lecture
210 hrs self-study
8 hrs infographic
32 hrs exam preparation
The hours reserved for self-study are based on the average time students need to read the course material, based on a reading pace of 5 pages per hour and about 1,050 pages of course material. You may need more or less time to complete the self-study.
Assessment method
Infographic, midterm group assignment 25% of final grade
Grade can be compensated (through the final exam at the end of the course), resit not possible.
For this assignment, students are required to make an appealing infographic that explains scientific insights for a lay audience.
Written exam, endterm individual assignment 75% of final grade
Grade cannot be compensated, a 5.5 is required to pass the course. Resit will take the same form.
Transitional arrangements
Grades obtained for this course in previous academic years are no longer valid in academic year 2025-2026.
A resit must be taken when the written end term exam is lower than 5.5 or when the weighted grade of the infographic and the written exam is lower than 5.5.
The Course and Examination Regulation Security Studies and the Rules and Regulation of the Board of Examiners of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs apply.
Reading list
To be announced on Brightspace.
Registration
Students with a valid minor registration will register for courses via a form, which they will receive details about in an email in June.
Registration for individual courses as an elective student is possible from Tuesday 14 July 2025 13:00h onwards. Registration for the exam is mandatory.
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.
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 TBA 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 16 July 2026.
Contact
Before, during and after each lecture, the instructors will be available to answer theoretical and practical questions about the course. All other questions about the course can be emailed to the minor coordinator.
dr. Mischa Dekker violence@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
This course is the responsibility of the Board of Examiners of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA).
Remarks
This course takes place in The Hague.
Please be aware that resits will be organised in January 2027.
All sessions and examinations will be in English.