Salome Topuria

Salome Topuria completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Kassel and the Berlin School of Economics and Law. Her doctoral research focused on the political economy of uneven capitalist development and industrial policy in the post-Soviet context, with a case study on Georgia. She also holds a master’s degree in the political economy of European integration from the Berlin School of Economics and Law, as well as a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Prague, Czechia. Salome was a recipient of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s PhD scholarship. In 2024, she was a visiting PhD researcher at King’s College London. She has co-organized several international conferences, including the Young Economists Conference in collaboration with the Chamber of Labor Vienna and Upper Austria. In summer 2026, she will undertake an Early Career Research Stay at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB).

Research Interests

Political Economy of Industrial Policy
Economic Transition in the Post-Soviet Space
Peripheral Capitalism
Uneven and Combined Development
Materialist State Theory

Media Coverage

Sindreu, J. (2024): Germany Passed its First Chinese Test—This One Is Trickier. Wall Street Journal, 10 April 2024.

Publications

Nettekoven, Zeynep, and Topuria, Salome. “Global value chains and industrial upgrading – the case of the apparel industry in Georgia” (in preparation).

Gräf, Helena, and Topuria, Salome (2025). The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Industrial Policy in Germany and the European Union. European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, 22 (1), 118-134. doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0112.

Topuria, Salome and Gräf, Helena (2023). German Industrial Policy and the Twin Transition: Pre- and post-Covid Trajectories in the Automotive and IT Services Sectors, Working Paper, No 213/2023.

Khundadze, Tato and Topuria, Salome (2022). “Neoliberal Lock-in: Why Georgia-EU Free Agreement Doesn’t Work”. Tbilisi: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/georgien/20145.pdf