On April 29, 2017 International Black Sea University (IBSU) hosted 5^th joint international student conference with Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) “Caucasus at the Crossroads: Challenges to Regional Stability”. This year CPR became a partner of the conference organizing committee, and, alongside with five existing sections, initiated and led a new panel in Political Science.

For the Panel of Political Science CPR representatives selected highly professional jury, which was composed of three members: Assoc. Prof. Ivanna Machitidze (IBSU), Prof. Kornely Kakachia (TSU) and Prof. Alexsandre Kukhianidze (TSU). The moderator for the section was Levan Kakhishvili - Researcher at CPR.

In the framework of the panel, different topics related to political & election systems, party politics, democratization, media, etc. were discussed. The winner of the Political Science panel became Givi Silagadze an alumnus of TSU, who presented a paper “The Role of Party Cleavages in Party Systems”. Together with a certificate and gift card worth of 100 GEL, his paper will be published at the journal of Tbilisi State University.

Some of the other presented themes were: “Populism and Democratic Backsliding in Third-Wave Democracies”, “Comparative Analysis of Electoral Systems in Georgia and Azerbaijan”, “The Role of Media in Countries of Transitional Democracy”, “Negative Electoral Campaign in Georgia”, etc. After each presentation, discussion was held in form of the Q&A session. Participants received useful recommendations from the members of jury that will help them for developing their topics.