Prof. dr. Doutje Lettinga is professor by special appointment at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (AISSR). Her chair Urban Dynamics of Rights and Justice is dedicated to studying how the democratic rule of law takes shape at the city level. She conducts and supervises research on urban politics and policies of human rights, with a special focus on rights mobilization and realization by civil society.

She combines this Chair (1 day/week) with her main role as Chief Science Officer of the City of Amsterdam. In that capacity she fosters evidence-led urban policy and decision making, by stimulating stronger links with science and research communities in the city, enhancing internal research capability, and brokering external expertise.

Lettinga’s work at the science-policy-practice interface has focused on human rights, (gender) equality and social justice. She has held senior positions at The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, Amnesty International and the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s human rights department. She is a board member of civil society organisations that work with underrepresented groups on positive system change.

Lettinga holds a PhD in sociology from VU University Amsterdam, master’s degrees in history and political science from the University of Amsterdam. In 2026, she obtained an L.L.M. in human rights from the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) (cum laude). Her doctoral research examined the framing and regulation of the Islamic veil in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, which she defended in 2011. She was previously a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) (London), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (Paris), and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) (Berlin). She also studied as an exchange student at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (Istanbul)

Research interests:

• Human rights policy and practice
• (Local) democracy and civic engagement
• Civil society organizations and social mobilization
• Access to justice
• Citizenship, equality, intersectionality

Research methods

Lettinga’s research approach is impact-driven, comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing from political science, sociology, history, and (human rights) law. Methods include policy and legal analysis, interviews, empirical case studies, ethnography and discourse analysis.