ABSTRACT
This case study discusses how Egypt’s Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser led a successful coup d’état and, once firmly in power, sought rapid modernization. His efforts to promote a grand Arab nation notwithstanding, he never faced a problem of nation building, because Egyptians already had a strong sense of national identity, in part based on the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. His challenges concerned state building, with priority to creating a strong military, and promoting socioeconomic development. Unflinching pursuit of these objectives had a great, unanticipated impact on Nasser’s foreign and economic policies. Initially he followed U.S. recommendations of land reform and institutional models like the Tennessee Valley Authority as pathways to national prosperity. He also followed Western economic advice to concentrate on import substitution industrialization (ISI). These policies, however, did not deliver rapid economic progress. Given Soviet willingness to provide key weapons systems in the face of Western intransigence and support for Israel, Nasser gravitated from state-guided capitalism to an Arab socialist model for economic development. Simultaneously, he raised the banner of Arab nationalism in order to unite Egyptians at home and to elevate Egypt’s regional influence. The nationalization of Egyptian enterprises to fund his costly quest for regional influence, combined with the failed ISI strategy, caused economic overextension and stagnation that undermined his dreams to create a stable and prosperous society. Any attempt to evaluate Nasser’s nation- and state-building endeavors, which are obviously long-term by nature, must take into account his premature death at age fifty-two.
