The Social Origins of Egyptian Expansionism During the Muhammad Ali Period

Why do countries capture and occupy lands beyond their own borders? Fred Lawson contends that, in the Arab world, expansionist policy has little to do with the temperament of the individual leaders and even less with the activities of the great powers. Instead, he argues that the character and intensity of a country's domestic political conflicts directly determine foreign policies.;Conventional explanations for Egyptian expansionism after 1810 primarily involve the motives and strategic calculations of Muhammad Ali Pasha himself. In contrast, Lawson argues that, when confronted both by challenges from forces outside the ruling coalition and by fundamental conflicts of interest within the regime, Egypt's rulers turned to a programme of military expansion.;The argument establishes the importance of a domestic political conflict approach to the study of foreign policy, essential for scholars of the Middle East and international relations. This text aims to provide a basis for the study of episodes of expansionism, and for further work on aggressive foreign policy, not only in the Arab world but worldwide.