Borders and State Power : The Turkish-Syrian Border in the 1920s and 1930s

This article studies the delimitation of the Turkish-Syrian border in the 1920s and 1930s in order to illustrate the dynamic relationship between the development of modern borders -precise, fixed lines drawn around well-defined territories - and the development of the nation-state. In Turkey, the definition of the border was part of the extension of the new republican States power over the territory it claimed. The border also played an important role in the Republic nationalist discourse, since it served to define not only the territory of the State, but also the groups and populations that had to be excluded. In Syria, the definition of the border played a similar role in the extension in the mandatory state power; but it was in Syrian Arab nationalist discourse rather than the discourse of the mandatory power that the border found a discursive role.