Lia Tsuladze

Lia Tsuladze is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Tbilisi State University’s Faculty of Social and Political Sciences and the Executive Director of the Center for Social Sciences in Georgia. Her research focuses on Georgia’s Europeanization processes, political discourses, and the interplay between media and public perception. She has led major projects such as the Horizon 2020-funded Mediatized EU initiative (2021-2024) and earlier studies on Europeanization discourses funded by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation and Academic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN).

Her work combines content analysis, in-depth interviews, and surveys to explore how political actors and media frame European integration. Key areas include Georgia’s diplomatic strategies, youth perspectives on EU accession, and the impact of geopolitical tensions on identity formation. Tsuladze’s comparative research, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, examined Europeanization perceptions in Romania, Poland, and Georgia’s border regions.

As a former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford (2013-2014), she analyzed national identity discourses in Georgia. Her recent contributions include co-editing the volume Mediatized Discourses on Europeanization and Their Representations in Public Perceptions (2024) and participating in the Review of Democracy podcast discussing Georgia’s democratic erosion.

Her grants and collaborations span EU-funded programs and international partnerships, emphasizing methodological triangulation (qualitative and quantitative approaches). She is actively involved in academic initiatives to enhance European integration awareness among Georgian academic communities and ethnic minorities.