Donaldson, M; (2023) Sykes–Picot. In: Reus-Smit, C and Keene, E and Spanu, M and Bukovansky, M, (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations. (660-C45P82). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

The Sykes–Picot agreement (1916), apportioning the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire between Britain and France, reflects long-term geopolitical considerations, the diplomatic style of late imperialism, and wartime strategic imperatives. Though the agreement was not ultimately decisive of the post-First World War settlement, its basic tenets did find expression in the arrangements for mandate governance in the interwar years and helped shape the conditions in which postcolonial states would emerge. The agreement is still charged with symbolic significance, and figures in the diagnoses and political projects of diverse actors today. However, focus on the agreement itself can distort the questions we ask about twentieth-century history and politics in the region. This chapter analyses the agreement as a discrete ‘moment’, unpacking its conventional contexts, but also probing how we might re-examine it through lenses of modernity and granularity, and vice-versa.

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