Please join us as Anna Hess presents, "Mediation in Flux: Navigating the Geopolitical Maze in the Russia-Ukraine Context.”
About the Seminar
This presentation draws on my article, Mediation in Flux: Navigating the Geopolitical Maze in the Ukraine-Russia Context. It examines how geopolitical rivalry reshapes the conditions under which mediation becomes possible, constrained, disabled, or reduced to conflict management. Using the Russia-Ukraine war as the anchor case, the paper explores the limits of traditional Euro-Atlantic and UN-centred mediation frameworks, while also analysing the growing visibility of diverse state actors such as Türkiye, Qatar, China, and others. The presentation asks what these shifts mean for the broader mediation landscape, and how diverse mediators navigate the tension between strategic interests, access, leverage, and mediation goals.
Online meeting information to come.
About the Speaker
Anna Hess Sargsyan is a Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding at the Graduate Institute Geneva and a peace and security expert with over twenty years of experience in peace mediation, mediation support, process design, dialogue facilitation, and applied policy research. Over the course of her career, she has designed and supported formal and informal peace processes across Eurasia and South Asia, and has developed educational programmes in peace and conflict studies, ranging from certificate courses to Master’s degree programmes.
In her most recent role as Head of Conflict Resolution at the Austrian Centre for Peace, Anna led work on dialogue and mediation processes across the Middle East, Africa, and Eurasia. She has worked with organisations including the OSCE, ETH Zurich/CSS, the Austrian Centre for Peace, CMI, and other mediation-support actors. Her current research focuses on geopolitics and the changing practice of peace mediation, with particular attention to Ukraine, the OSCE/post-Soviet space, and the growing role of diverse state actors in mediation. She is currently working on a book project examining the impact of geopolitical tensions on protracted conflicts, with comparative case studies from Eurasia and the Middle East.
About the Seminars
Each semester, CCDP hosts a series of internal seminars to give our faculty, staff and affiliates the opportunity to present their work and receive feedback. The goal of the seminars is to have an informal and frank conversation about the research presented, and exchange ideas across disciplines and expertise, going beyond academic silos. Speakers at the seminars are both early career and senior scholars.
Eliza Urwin is organising the seminars for the academic year. For further information, get in touch at eliza.urwin@graduateinstitute.ch.