How did you come to choose your research topic?

I first began thinking about the relationship between the history of colonialism and the history of international relations during my graduate studies. At the time, I was enrolled in a History graduate programme that focused on European history but also included the histories of other regions. What initially piqued my interest was the impact of colonial expansion on the formation of the modern international system, foreign policy-making, international law, global politics, and the power inequalities that shape international relations. At that stage, I had no specific spatial or temporal focus. It was only after a trip that I chose the geographic region that would later become the subject of both my master’s thesis and my doctoral dissertation.

During my visit to Lebanon and pre–civil war Syria, I had the opportunity to perceive more clearly the tangible and intangible traces of the transformations the two countries had undergone over a period of 25 to 30 years at the beginning of the 20th century. Later, in addition to the History graduate programme I was pursuing, I also enrolled in an area studies programme focusing on West Asia. Over time, the history of West Asia became increasingly intriguing to me. I ultimately decided to conduct my research on Interwar Syria and Lebanon, a region and period where the history of international relations and the history of colonialism intersect.

Can you describe your dissertation questions and the methodology you use to approach those questions?

At the outset of my doctoral research, the fundamental question on my mind was whether mandate states had their own foreign policies, independent of or distinct from those of the imperial centres. Posing this question, let alone its answer, was crucial because the countries subjected to “Class A” mandates, including Syria and Lebanon, were not designated as “fully sovereign” or “fully independent” countries in the mandate charters. In the 1920s, when the League of Nations was still in its inception, the prevailing approach to international law within the League held that the sovereignty and independence of these countries were theoretically recognised, but that the exercise of their (external) sovereign rights was reserved for an open-ended period and formally entrusted to another state.

Despite their similarities with other mandate territories in West Asia, Syria and Lebanon stand out in that, during the Interwar years, they were subjected in the strictest sense to the mandate charter that established the legal framework I have described. During my archival work in the League of Nations archives in Geneva and the diplomatic archives in Nantes and La Courneuve, I was constantly preoccupied with the question of the extent to which the legal framework drawn up by the designers of the mandate system was valid on the ground.

New questions that emerged during my archival work expanded the original inquiry: What were the core foreign-policy objectives and priorities of the mandate states, and how did they differ from or even conflict with those of France? How were these priorities formulated, by whom? And in whose name, on which platforms, and through what means were these priorities articulated and advanced?

When I began searching for answers to these questions in archival materials, I realised that it would be impossible to address them solely through the official sources of France or the mandate states of Syria and Lebanon, which were largely under its strict control. Therefore, in conducting this study, I adopted a methodological approach that can be characterised as eclectic. In addition to documents from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner, the League of Nations, and other institutions, I decided to also focus on other types of documents, some of which were non-institutional and unofficial. These include documents rarely included in studies of foreign policy, such as petitions, opinion pieces, telegrams, and letters sent by religious leaders, notables, landowners, merchants, professionals, journalists, students, and politicians from various villages, towns, and cities, as well as manifestos, pamphlets and leaflets produced by various political parties or civic initiatives.

The reason for consulting such a diverse range of sources was twofold. First, to identify the shared and diverging foreign policy aspirations of actors from different cultural and social backgrounds, localities, and political orientations, and to assess the extent to which these aspirations influenced the formation of the foreign policies of the two countries. Second, to construct a historical narrative that went beyond the dichotomy of mandatory power and mandate states. It was this eclectic methodology that enabled me to identify the foreign policy priorities of the two mandate states and to trace the development of their foreign policy-making capacities.

What are your major findings?

The Interwar years were a period in which Ottoman administration in Syria and Lebanon was replaced by French administration, and nation-states were established in both countries under the auspices and supervision of the League of Nations, in parallel with the mandate. Moreover, unlike other mandate states, Syria inherited the brief experience of an independent state, albeit one lacking international recognition, while Lebanon inherited a long-standing regime of autonomy, established through an international agreement but abolished during the Great War.

It was anticipated/promised that the territories under mandate administration would eventually attain full independence and sovereignty; in practice, however, such prospects remained distant and largely nominal. As is often noted today, even at its inception, the mandate system was criticised for serving as a thinly veiled form of colonisation. Mandatory powers were tasked by the League of Nations with building the institutions that mandate states were likely to need once they achieved full independence — in other words, preparing them, at least in appearance, for independence whose timing was left uncertain.

Placing these countries in an intermediate category between full-fledged colonies and fully independent countries under the mandate system also brought about the emergence of a concept of sovereignty, in a sense, unique to mandate states. In the Syria-Lebanon mandate, this situation created a space for conflict, competition, compromise, and negotiation that involved many actors and went beyond the dichotomy of mandatory power and mandate states. The disputes that arose during the mandate years over who would exercise sovereign rights and to what extent, together with the recent transition of both countries from Ottoman to French administration, transformed Syria and Lebanon, making them particularly compelling examples of colonisation during decolonisation, or conversely, decolonisation during colonisation.

In essence, the dissertation concludes that the foreign policy priorities of the mandate states of Lebanon and Syria began to solidify in the 1920s, matured and diversified in the 1930s, and that some of these were carried over into the 1940s, retaining their relevance even after independence. It is worth noting that these priorities were expressed at both institutional and non-institutional levels, through both official and unofficial channels, and by both state and non-state actors.

Another conclusion reached in the dissertation is that the emergence and formulation of foreign policy priorities, none of which were independent of place or time, were both a cause and a consequence of the expansion of the foreign policy-making capacities of the two countries, a process that did not follow a linear pattern and experienced occasional setbacks. These developments paralleled the institutionalisation of these two states, which increasingly exercised their agency during this period.

What personal insights or key takeaways have you gained from conducting this research, and how do you see it contributing to the existing literature in your field?

Since the beginning of my doctoral research, I have consistently adopted an approach that treats foreign policy as a set of strategies and actions pursued not only by states, at the institutional level, and through official channels, but also by non-state actors, at the non-institutional level, and through unofficial channels. In this process, I have come to realise that in countries still undergoing the state-building process and lacking international recognition, the development of foreign policy-making capacity and the emergence of foreign policy priorities are better traced through alternative pathways, since these states often lack the institutions and tools available to well-established states.

The cases of Syria and Lebanon demonstrate that, beyond the foreign policy of the imperial centre, the mandate states had their own priorities and decisions, which sometimes aligned with, but often contradicted, imperial policies. In these countries, multiple foreign policy orientations coexisted, both in terms of priorities and, although frequently constrained by the mandatory power, in terms of implementation. Examining foreign policy-making in mandates, or more broadly in dependent states, offers an alternative to conventional approaches to the history of (Interwar) international relations, which often focus exclusively on imperial centres.

Studies in this vein may not only transform our understanding of the history of (Interwar) international relations, and consequently of the contemporary discipline itself, but also contribute to theory by drawing on the experiences of former dependent states, which is rare in the field, through the analysis of diverse examples. In the literature on the history of international relations, these examples may collectively offer a perspective reminiscent of what the mise en abyme technique creates in painting: each case illuminates the trajectory of the others, and traces of other cases can be discerned within each.

What are you doing now or going to do?

At the moment, I am engaged in writing an article related to my dissertation research, developing the curriculum for a course I will be teaching next semester, and preparing application materials for two postdoctoral positions.

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On 17 September 2025, Egecan Erdogan defended his PhD thesis in International History, titled “Foreign Policy Making Capacities and Foreign Policy Priorities of the Mandate States of Syria and Lebanon during the Interwar Period”. Associate Professor Carolyn Biltoft presided over the committee, which included Professor Cyrus Schayegh, thesis supervisor, and Professor Jordi Tejel Gorgas, University of Neuchâtel.

Citation of the PhD thesis: 
Erdogan, Egecan. “Foreign Policy Making Capacities and Foreign Policy Priorities of the Mandate States of Syria and Lebanon during the Interwar Period.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2025.
Access:
Members of the Geneva Graduate Institute can access the thesis via this page of the repository. Others can contact Dr Erdogan.

Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.