Leaders and Egyptian Foreign Policy: Individual Factors During Nasser and Morsi Periods

Egypt has witnessed two political revolutions in 1952 and 2011. Following the revolutions, while Nasser came to power after the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy, Morsi took the lead after the fall of Mubarak’s 30-year rule in Egypt. Given leader-centric foreign policies in authoritarian/developing countries, both leaders with divergent agendas were expected to change Egypt’s existing foreign policy to a great extent. Nasser satisfied this expectation, whereas Morsi failed to make radical foreign policy changes in Egypt. This study aims firstly to present individual-level factors that play substantial roles in whether leaders become effective and influential in foreign policy and then tries to show how these factors paved the way for the difference between the impacts of Nasser and Morsi on Egypt’s foreign policy.