Was The Ford Motor Company Vulnerable To Postwar Egyptian Nationalism?

Historian Robert L. Tignor tackled this question in his research on the history of Ford's business ventures in Egypt, from 1945 to 1960.

Tignor argues that the Ford Motor Company of Egypt experienced limited financial success due to the politics of the Egyptian government. Despite its initial financial influence, Ford was affected by the nationalist instability of the postwar period and the pressures of 'Egyptianization'. Ford fared relatively well until the Suez Crisis of 1956, after which the Egyptian government placed stringent limitations on foreign capital, became antagonistic towards the firm's expatriate executives and followed a policy of nationalization.

Using archival business records, Tignor challenges the literature of dependency, which overestimates the political and financial clout of multinational corporations over host countries, by demonstrating the vulnerability of Ford to Egyptian politics. As such, Tignor shows that host countries were not simply victims of multinational corporations, but that governments had significant control over their national economies and over the success of foreign businesses.

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