The Role of Military Backgrounds in the Liberation Movements of Middle Eastern Leaders: A Case Study of the Free Officers Movement in Egypt

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Abstract

The military backgrounds allowed strategic discipline and command structures and elite networks to lead decolonization through the study of Egypt’s Free Officers Movement. The research shows that military officers who initiated uprisings such as Gamal Abdel Nasser employed their battlefield experience to rapidly achieve revolutionary objectives, while creating enduring authoritarian systems of control. The research uses content analysis along with historical-comparative analysis of primary documents to present new insights about how military origins influenced both liberation movements and permanent government systems in the region. The research demonstrates that military leadership functioned as a fundamental power force which molded revolutionary movements and state development in post-colonial nations.

About the authors

Reem M. Elbathy

HSE University

Author for correspondence.
Email: reem.MahmoudElbathy@outlook.com
ORCID iD: 0009-0004-0046-7281

Postgraduate Student of the Department of Politics and Management, Faculty of Social Sciences

Moscow, Russian Federation

References

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