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Abstract
This study examines the emergence of Syria's and Lebanon's foreign policy priorities and the development of their foreign policy making capacities through the perspectives, discourses, decisions, and actions of various actors who influenced or attempted to influence the foreign policies and relations of the mandate states of Syria and Lebanon during the Interwar period, and the outcomes arising from their interactions. Based on this examination, the study argues that the positioning of the mandate states of Syria and Lebanon in a grey zone between colonisation and independence was the primary reason for sovereignty in these countries to be in this zone, and that this created a space for competition, confrontation, negotiation and compromise among actors who could not be confined to the mandatory country-mandate country dichotomy. The study demonstrates that the mandate states of Syria and Lebanon began developing their own foreign policy priorities starting in the 1920s, when they were not yet fully sovereign and independent. These priorities, expressed through both official and unofficial channels, at both institutional and non-institutional levels, and by both state and non-state actors, matured and gained stronger expression in the 1930s. The study indicates that, as both a cause and a consequence of this process, the foreign policy development capacities of Syria and Lebanon expanded simultaneously with the institutionalisation of the two states and the development of these foreign policy priorities during the same period. Parallels and intersections that can be drawn between other ‘not-completely sovereign and independent’ states and Interwar Syria and Lebanon not only shed light on the development of foreign policy priorities and the development of foreign policy capacities of these states, but may also lead to new definitions of the concepts of sovereignty and independence within the context of colonialism.