Kornely Kakachia is an associate professor of political science at Ivane Javakishvili Tbilisi State University and director of the Tbilisi-based Georgian Institute of Politics. His current research focuses on Georgian foreign policy, the security issues of the wider Black Sea area and comparative party politics. He has been the recipient of IREX and OSI fellowships and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (2009-10), the Harriman Institute, Columbia University (2011) and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (2000).