I am a rural development sociologist, specialised in conflict and peacebuilding in developing countries. After my graduation at Wageningen University in 1999, I worked as a researcher at Clingendael, and with various NGOs in Kenya, Sudan, Guatemala and Bolivia. My PhD research at Wageningen Disaster Studies (2004-2008) concerned discourses and practices of civil society peacebuilding and their international support, with fieldwork in a.o. Burundi and Guatemala. Since 2009, I work at the Radboud University. My research work focuses on land disputes and post-conflict land reform; climate change, natural resources and conflict; civil society and local peacebuilding; local state- and non-state governance and state formation; and the discourses and practices of intervening organizations regarding conflict and peace. Many of my research projects are interactive in nature, and challenge policy makers and practitioners from development organizations to critically reflect on their own work and on the implications of research findings for policy and intervention.

• Mathijs van Leeuwen (2023), Van oorlog terug naar vrede – Voorbij de ‘local turn’ in vrede- & conflictstudies, Inaugural Lecture, Radboud University.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen, An Ansoms, Joel Baraka, Emery Mudinga, Camille Munezero & Gemma van der Haar (2023), Localized land tenure registration in Burundi and eastern DR Congo: contributing to sustainable peace? Global Environmental Change, Global Environmental Change, 83. 
• Mathijs van Leeuwen, Doreen Kobusingye & Joshua Maiyo (2023), The legitimation effects of peacebuilding and development interventions; Strengthening local land registration in Northern Uganda, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 18(2):142-157.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen, Gillian Mathys, Lotje de Vries & Gemma van der Haar (2022), From resolving land disputes to agrarian justice – dealing with the structural crisis of plantation agriculture in eastern DR Congo, Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(2):309-334.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen, Joseph Nindorera, Jean-Louis Kambale Nzweve, & Corita Corbijn (2020), The ‘local turn’ and notions of conflict and peacebuilding – Reflections on local peace committees in Burundi and eastern DR Congo, Peacebuilding, 8(3).
• Mathijs van Leeuwen, David Betge, Doreen Kobusingye & Josh Maiyo (2019), Working on legitimacy in land governance; Training manual. External research report, Radboud University Nijmegen.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen (2017), Localizing Land Governance, Strengthening the State: Decentralization and Land Tenure Security in Uganda, Journal of Agrarian Change, 17(1):208-227. 
• Peter Hakim Justin & Mathijs van Leeuwen (2016), The politics of displacement-related land conflict in Yei River County, South Sudan, Journal of Modern African Studies, 54(3):419-442.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen & Gemma van der Haar, Theorizing the Land – Violent Conflict Nexus, World Development, 78(2016):94-104.
• Mathijs van Leeuwen & Rens Willems (2015), Reconciling reintegration: the complexity of economic and social reintegration of ex-combatants in Burundi, Disasters, 39(2):316-338.