Board of Directors
Vassiliοs Paipais
President of the BoD and Director
Vassilios Paipais is Professor of International Political Theory at Panteion University and Director of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS). He has previously worked at the Universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh, LSE, SOAS, and UCL. He earned his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds an undergraduate degree in Law (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), an MA in International Relations and Strategic Studies (Panteion University, Athens) and an MRes in International Relations (LSE). He has also been awarded a Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE) and he is a UK Higher Education Academy Fellow. As a teacher, he has received numerous accolades among which the Montague
Burton and John Charvet Teaching Prizes from the LSE. His research focuses on three main areas: the theory and history of realism as an ethico-political response to the crisis of liberal modernity in the 20th century, the question of ontology in politics and international relations, and the study of political theology in world politics. He also teaches International Relations theory, International Political Theory, and political theory courses.
His peer review articles have been published in leading IR and political theory journals, such as Review of International Studies, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Journal of International Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, Philosophy and Social Criticism, among others. He has also published numerous chapters in edited volumes. He has published the monograph: Political Ontology and International Political Thought: voiding a pluralist world (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2017), and three edited volumes: Theology and World Politics: metaphysics, genealogies, political theologies (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2020), Perspectives on International Political Theory in Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2021) και The Civil Condition in World Politics:
beyond tragedy and utopianism (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022). His next monograph, coming out in 2026/7 with Edinburgh University Press, lies in the interstices between political theology and affirmative biopolitics. He is a Visiting Fellow at the University of St Andrews, a member of the Academic Board of the Journal of International Political Theory, a member of the Advisory Board of The Centre for Minorities Research (CMR) at the University of St Andrews, a member of the Intellectual History Institute at the University of St Andrews, and a founding member of the Greek Council for International Relations. He is a frequent participant in a number of international conferences (BISA, EISA, EWIS, ISA, ECPR, PSA) and has organized a series of international conferences and workshops. He has also served as Programme Director of the European International Studies Association Annual Conference in 2022.
Konstantinos Tsimonis
Deputy Director
Konstantinos Tsimonis is Assistant Professor in Chinese Politics and Academic Lead of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS) China Program at the Department of European and International Studies, Panteion University. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London and an affiliate of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London where he previously served as a tenured faculty member. Konstantinos first went to Beijing in 2003 and spent a total of five years studying mandarin and working. During his doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), he conducted fieldwork in China as a visiting doctoral student at Peking University. Following the completion of his PhD, he held his first academic post at SOAS, and later joined King’s where he worked for eleven years.
His publications include the monograph The Chinese Communist Youth League: Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization (Amsterdam University Press, 2021); the co-authored monograph Belt and Road: The First Decade(Agenda Publishing, 2022); and the co-edited volume Corruption and Anti-Corruption Upside Down: New Perspectives from the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).His research has appeared in Modern China, Europe-Asia Studies, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, The Chinese Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Youth Studies, among other journals. His work has been supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation, the British Academy, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, among other institutions. He is a member of the editorial board of the People’s Map of Global China and of the Advisory Editorial Board of the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies, co-editor the IDIS East Asia Series and a founding member of the Hellenic Association of Chinese Studies.
Kostas Lavdas
Member of the Board of Directors
Kostas A. Lavdas is Professor of European and Comparative Politics and Director of the Graduate Program in International Relations and Strategic Studies. Before joining Panteion University, he was Constantine Karamanlis Professor of Hellenic and European Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA and Senior Research Fellow at LSE, UK. Professor Lavdas was born in Athens and was educated in Greece, Britain (at LSE and the University of Manchester) and the US (at MIT). He has published extensively in English, German, and Greek on European politics, comparative foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and applied political theory. He has been a consultant to public and private organizations, has served as a board member at various research centers and think tanks and as chairman of the scientific committee for the content of the examinations required for the acquisition of Greek citizenship at the Ministry of Interior. Professor Lavdas has taught and researched at universities, research centers and think tanks internationally, including Tufts (USA), LSE, Manchester and Bristol (UK), SFG (Mumbai, India) and Crete, Greece, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and Personnel. His publications include seven books, many chapters in edited volumes and papers in international refereed journals (including European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Politics).
Harry Papasotiriou
Member of the Board of Directors
Harry Papasotiriou is Professor of International Relations at Panteion University. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford and got an MA and a Ph.D. (1992) from Stanford’s Political Science Department. He is co-author of America Since 1945: The American Moment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, second edition 2010) and has published books and articles on the Balkans since the end of the Cold War, the War of Greek Independence, Byzantine grand strategy, American politics and foreign policy, the role of the diaspora in Greek foreign policy and international politics in the twenty-first century.
Chara Karagiannopoulou
Member of the Board of Directors
Chara Karagiannopoulou is Associate Professor of Comparative and International Politics at the Department of International, European and Area Studies, Panteion University, Athens. She is Visiting Research Professor, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax. She is a Board member of the Institute of International Relations and a member of the research module Studies in Migration and Displacement at the same institution. In the past, she was Teaching Fellow at Universität Bielefeld, Germany, and Member of the Scientific Committee of the Research Centre for Gender Equality in Athens-Greece.
She holds a B.A. in Theology from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, a M.Th. degree in History and Philosophy of Religions from King’s College, London and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Her research interests include: comparative politics, identity politics, gender and IR, and religion and IR.
Executive Director
Ino Afentouli
Ino Afentouli is the Executive Director of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS), Greece’s leading university research institute, affiliated to the Department of International and European Studies at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences.
During 2002-2022, she served as Program Manager at NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division. In this capacity, she was responsible for the design and implementation of the communications strategy of the Organization towards the member states of the Southern flank as well as towards the partner countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Prior to joining NATO, she was a journalist specialized in foreign and European affairs and she worked for Greek media outlets (Kathimerini daily, Sky Radio, Star Channel, Athens News Agency) as well as the Economist Intelligence Unit-Greek edition.
For her work, she was awarded with the Calligas prize attributed by the European Journalists Association. She studied Law at the University of Athens and Political Science and Political Communication at the University of Paris I – Sorbonne and Paris II.
She is the author of three books and numerous articles and founding member of the Israeli-Hellenic Forum and the Greek-Turkish Forum.
Director of Programs
Konstantinos Tsimonis
Deputy Director
Konstantinos Tsimonis is Assistant Professor in Chinese Politics and Academic Lead of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS) China Program at the Department of European and International Studies, Panteion University. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London and an affiliate of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London where he previously served as a tenured faculty member. Konstantinos first went to Beijing in 2003 and spent a total of five years studying mandarin and working. During his doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), he conducted fieldwork in China as a visiting doctoral student at Peking University. Following the completion of his PhD, he held his first academic post at SOAS, and later joined King’s where he worked for eleven years.
His publications include the monograph The Chinese Communist Youth League: Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization (Amsterdam University Press, 2021); the co-authored monograph Belt and Road: The First Decade(Agenda Publishing, 2022); and the co-edited volume Corruption and Anti-Corruption Upside Down: New Perspectives from the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).His research has appeared in Modern China, Europe-Asia Studies, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, The Chinese Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Youth Studies, among other journals. His work has been supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation, the British Academy, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, among other institutions. He is a member of the editorial board of the People’s Map of Global China and of the Advisory Editorial Board of the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies, co-editor the IDIS East Asia Series and a founding member of the Hellenic Association of Chinese Studies.
Honorary President
Professor Dimitri Constas
Dimitri Constas spearheaded the establishment of IDIS and served as its Founding Director (1989–2005). He studied at Panteion University and the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and subsequently at Carleton University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he obtained the graduate degrees MA, MALD, and Ph.D. He introduced the teaching of International Relations at Panteion University and served as Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1987–89).
He was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the research institution of the U.S. Congress; a Senior Fulbright Fellow at Princeton University; and a Research Fellow in International Relations at the Center for European Studies (January–April 2011).
His scholarly, teaching, and research work is analyzed extensively in the honorary volume Theory and Practice in International Relations (2024, Papazisis Publications), edited by Maria Koppá (Panteion University) and Panayotis Tsakonas (University of Athens).
He served as Rector of Panteion University for two consecutive terms (1990–95), as Interim Minister of Press and Mass Media (August–September 1996), and represented Greece on the High Council of the European University Institute (1994–2004). In March 1997, he was appointed Ambassador ad personam and assigned the duties of Permanent Representative of Greece to the Council of Europe. During the Greek Presidency of the organization, he chaired the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Council of Europe. Following the completion of his ambassadorial term, he became Greece’s representative to the Venice Commission (2002), where he was elected President of the Sub-Commission on International Law (2003–2006).
In connection with his tenure as Rector, he became the target of judicial prosecution that led to Greece being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The case concluded with the granting of a presidential pardon by the President of the Republic following a relevant resolution of Parliament.
Administrative Staff
Popi Laina
Assistant to the President of the Board of Directors
Maria Deca
Events Coordinator