Public lecture

Press release — 3 October 2012

Dr. George Khelashvili of Tbilisi State University will give a public lecture entitled

GEORGIA, RUSSIA AND THE NORTH CAUCASUS: IS ENMITY WHAT STATES MAKE OF IT?
(announcement .pdf)

on 11 October 2012, 14.15-15.45 at the Faculty of the Social Sciences and Education (Lossi 36), room 215

The North Caucasus has been the most pronounced national security problem for two neighbouring countries – Georgia and Russia – since the early 1990s. Both countries failed to address the problem adequately: Georgia lost control over two provinces adjacent to the North Caucasus, and Russia did not manage to quell separatist and religious fundamentalist challenges in the region in a sustainable way. Given the seriousness of the challenge of the North Caucasus, both realist as well as liberal school of thought in International Relations would expect mutually beneficial collaboration between Georgia and Russia in addressing the security problem. And yet, consecutive regimes both in Georgia as well as Russia failed to achieve collaboration, and have instead fostered the destructive process in the North Caucasus and adjacent areas. The lecture analyzes the root causes of Georgian-Russian discord regarding the politics of the North Caucasus.

George Khelashvili is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Tbilisi State University and Director of Graduate Studies at the Center for Social Sciences. His doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford dealt with US policy toward Georgia. Dr Khelashvili’s academic interests comprise post-Soviet studies, nationalism and foreign policy, and IR theory and method. He is currently working on a book on Georgia’s foreign policy since independence.

The lecture is organized by the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS), University of Tartu.