Georgia

Ghia Nodia

Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Unfinished Democratic Transformations in Georgia

Dr. Ghia Nodia is professor of politics and director of the International School of Caucasus Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. He is also founding director of the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development, an independent public policy think tank, where he served as director from 1992 to 2008 and as chairman from 2009 to the present. In 2008, Dr. Nodia served as Georgia’s minister of education and science for eleven months. He has published extensively on democratization, state-building, and security in Georgia and the Caucasus, as well as on theories of nationalism and democratic transitions in the post–Cold War context. His books include The Political Landscape in Georgia: Political Parties: Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects (2006) and Lurching to Democracy: From Agnostic Tolerance to Pious Jacobinism: Societal Change and People’s Reactions (2000). During his fellowship, Dr. Nodia is examining Georgia’s experience of political change over the past 25 years and formulating implications for comparative democratic theory.