Rate My Professor Giorgi Gvalia

Giorgi Gvalia is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Ilia State University, where he also serves as Vice-Rector since September 2021 and holder of the Jean Monnet Chair since October 2023. Previously, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 2013 to 2021, Chair of the Faculty Academic Council during the same period, and has been Academic Head of the PhD program in Political Science since 2018 and the BA program in International Relations since 2016. Earlier in his career, Gvalia held positions such as Associate Professor (2013-2016), Senior Adviser in the Analytical Department of the National Security Council of Georgia (2009-2013), and Assistant Professor at the International School for Caucasus Studies (2008-2013). He earned his PhD in Political Science from Ilia State University (2009-2013), MA in International Relations from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (2005-2007), BA in International Relations from the same university (2000-2004), and completed an advanced course in social science research at Arizona State University in 2011.

Gvalia's research interests encompass theories of international relations, foreign policies of small states, alliances in international relations, public opinion and foreign policy, and Europeanization in the post-Soviet space. His influential publications include the article “Thinking Outside the Bloc: Explaining the Foreign Policies of Small States” published in Security Studies (2013, co-authored with David Siroky, Bidzina Lebanidze, and Zurab Iashvili), the book Political Elites, Ideas and Foreign Policy: Explaining and Understanding the International Behavior of Small States in the Former Soviet Union (Ilia State University Press, 2011, with Bidzina Lebanidze and Zurab Iashvili), “Neoclassical Realism and Small States: Systemic Constraints and Domestic Filters in Georgia’s Foreign Policy” in East European Politics (2019, with Bidzina Lebanidze and David S. Siroky), and “Geopolitics and Modernization: Understanding Georgia’s Pro-Western Assertiveness since the Rose Revolution” (2018, with Bidzina Lebanidze). Other works cover national security, elite responses, and state-building in Georgia (2022). Gvalia has been awarded the Ilia Chavchavadze Fellowship Program for Young Scholars (2009), participated in TEMPUS Program as Invited Scholar at University of Montpellier III (2009), and received scholarships from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Social and Strategic Research Foundation (2006). He serves as a reviewer for leading journals including Foreign Policy Analysis, Security Studies, and others, and was President of the Georgian Association for Public Opinion Research (2021-2023).