Switching Sides: Foreign Policy Realignment in Egypt and Syria, 1970-2000
Wallsh, David.
2018
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Why do states realign their foreign policies between competing
adversaries? Put another way, why do they switch sides? Such black and white
betrayals may be rare, but they are nevertheless one of the most important
phenomena in international politics when they occur. To understand this phenomenon
my dissertation examines three research questions: (1) Why did Egypt and Syria
adopt divergent ... read morealliance policies after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War?; (2) Why did
Syria remain aligned with Iran throughout the 1980s and 1990s, despite periods of
bilateral tension and concerted wedge attempts by prospective new allies?; and,
(3) What do these cases reveal about the broader phenomenon of foreign policy
realignment? I argue that three variables in particular help to explain the cases
at hand: threat perception, confidence in the availability of an alternative ally,
and the opportunity cost to revisionist ambition. In the course of my research I
trace the impact of these factors on leadership decision making and ultimately to
Egyptian and Syrian alliance policy, in the process providing broad theoretical
insights into the conditions under which realignment occurs.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.
Submitted to the Dept. of Diplomacy, History, and Politics.
Advisor: Robert Pfaltzgraff.
Committee: Richard Shultz, and Malik Mufti.
Keywords: International relations, and Middle Eastern studies.read less - ID:
- 7d279655m
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