Domestic Factors and Leaders in Foreign Policy Making: The Cases of Nasser and Morsi

Abstract

It has been a general assumption that leaders have played a vital role in the making of Egypt's foreign policy. This article tries to detail this assumption and illustrates that individual formulation and implementation of foreign policies following the Free Officers' coup d'etat of 1952 and the Egyptian revolution of 2011 cannot be sufficiently clarified in the absence of domestic level explanations. What is found in this study is that various domestic factors paved the way for Nasser to increase his effectiveness on Egypt's foreign policy, whereas they created a compelling environment for Morsi in which he had a lesser influence on its foreign policy during his short tenure.