Marine Chitashvili is a professor of psychology at Tbilisi State University. She received her Ph.D. and later habilitation from the Institute of Psychology, Georgian Academy of Science. She is the author of three books, including Psychology of Religiosity: Empirical Studies, which explores the personality characteristics and social values of Georgian Orthodox believers. She was the founder of the Center for Social Sciences think-tank and its executive director in 2003-2013, with subsequent affiliation as a senior fellow. Professor Chitashvili was director general of the National Science Foundation Georgia in 2014-2017. Her research interests are authoritarianism, personality, and their social dimensions. She leads an interdisciplinary team of young researchers to explore the personal and social factors of authoritarianism in transformative societies using 1996-2018 data from the world value survey on Georgia on democratization, religion, and inequality.
Professor Chitashvili is a visiting scholar with the Davis Center's Program on Georgian Studies for spring 2025. Her plans for this time involve exploring religion and politics in different national contexts through conversations with Harvard faculty and use of the university's other resources. She intends to present her ongoing research on the interrelatedness of authoritarianism, religiousness, and inequality, considering the case of Georgia as a transformative society backsliding on democracy, and on the instrumentalization of religion in politics.
