Nasserism and Arab nationalism: the transformation of the pan-Arab idea amidst the geopolitical challenges of the Middle East (1948-1961)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to comprehensively characterize Nasserism as a politico-ideological model of Arab nationalism in the second half of the 20th century, identifying the historical and political prerequisites of its emergence, its ideological content, and its significance for the transformation of the Pan-Arab idea. The article examines Nasserism in the context of the crisis of the Arab political order, which intensified after the defeat of the Arab states in the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949, the rise of anti-colonial sentiment, the weakening of traditional mechanisms of political legitimacy, and the search for new forms of regional consolidation. The study demonstrates that Nasserism cannot be reduced merely to the political course pursued by the Egyptian leadership. Rather, it represented a complex synthesis of anti-imperialist principles, pan-Arab concepts, ideas of social transformation, and the imperatives of state-building. Particular attention is given to the influence of the Arab intellectual tradition, including the ideas of Taha Hussein, Satiʿ al-Husri, and Michel Aflaq, on the formation of notions of national unity, political independence, and the historical mission of the Arab peoples. The scholarly novelty of the research lies in interpreting Nasserism as a contradictory political and intellectual construction that emerged at the intersection of pan-Arab universalism and the principle of national-state sovereignty. In contrast to approaches that regard Nasserism primarily as a form of Arab socialism or as an Egyptian authoritarian project of modernization, this article emphasizes the tension between qawmiyya, oriented toward supranational Arab unity based on a shared language, historical memory, and cultural identity, and wataniyya (state-territorial loyalty to a specific country, its institutions, and sovereignty), which affirmed the priority of the particular nation-state. The study concludes that Nasserism possessed a dual historical and political nature. On the one hand, it functioned as an instrument of anti-colonial mobilization, the strengthening of Egyptian sovereignty, the legitimation of socio-economic reforms, and the promotion of Arab solidarity. On the other hand, its practical implementation revealed the structural limitations of pan-Arab integration projects, most clearly manifested in the collapse of the United Arab Republic. At the same time, the article substantiates that the Nasserist legacy did not lose its relevance after the failure of the Egyptian-Syrian union. Its key components – anti-colonialism, social justice, state-oriented modernization, and the idea of Arab unity – continued to influence the political culture and foreign-policy self-identification of Arab states.