David Darchiashvili

Dr. David Darchiashvili is a professor in international relations, history and regional studies at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. Until recently he was also a director of the Center for Russian Studies – a Georgian non-governmental think tank. Born in 1960, Darchiahsvili graduated from the history department of the Tbilisi State University in 1982. Defending two doctoral theses – one in History (1991) and another in Political science (2002), Darchiashvili had number of research fellowships: 2002-2003 Fulbright scholarship, at the Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, US, being one of those.

Through years, he was a leading researcher at the Institute of Caucasus Studies of Peace, Democracy and Development, Tbilisi, Georgia, the head of the parliamentary research department, director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation. In 2008-2016 Darchiashvili was a member of the Georgian Parliament, focusing on legislative activity on the issues of European Integration and National Security. In 2010-2012 he was heading the Georgian delegation in the EU Eastern Partnership (Euronest) inter-parliamentary assembly.

David Darchiashvili authored and co-authored a number of books and academic articles on Georgia’s modern history, security problems and civil-military relations. Among those are:  “Georgia: The Search for the State Security”, Caucasus Working Papers, CISAC, Stanford University (1997); “Georgian Security Problems and Policies,” in The South Caucasus: A Challenge for the EU, Chaillot Papers, Institute for Security Studies (Paris, 2003); “Soviet Path Dependency as an Impediment of the Democratization in Georgia,” in Modernization in Georgia (Interdisciplinary Studies No. 18, Peter Lang, Bern, 2018); “Russo-Georgian War of August 2008 – Clash of Ideologies and National Projects in the Era of Hybrid Warfare,” Estonian Journal of Military Studies, 7 2018); Darchiashvili, David, Ronald Mangum, “Georgian Civil-Military Relations: Hostage to Confrontational Politics,” Caucasus Survey, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2019; Darchiashvili, D., and Grozovsky, B. “Georgia’s Backsliding from Democracy. Is the Russian Path Dependency on the rise?,” (Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy (2023); Darchiashvili, D., and Samarganishvili, Z., “Trajectory of Polish and Georgian National Projects: Case a for Comparative Nationalism Studies,” Ilia State University (2025) (in Georgian).

On various occasions, David Darchiashvili participated in networking with American, German, Finnish, Polish, British, Armenian, French and Austrian Universities and think-tanks.