Chapter 2 focuses on the domestic politics of Egypt during the Nasserite period. It describes how the restrictive policy implemented was employed in order to enhance the durability of the Free Officers regime, in three ways. Firstly, it aimed to strengthen the regime’s legitimacy and co-optation strategies. The rejection of labour emigration projected an image of an affluent state that could afford to take a political stance by not engaging in labour migration with either the First or the Second World. A restrictive labour emigration policy buttressed the regime’s economic policy of state developmentalism and import-substitution-industrialisation, and facilitated the co-optation of business elites within Egypt towards large-scale industrial projects that needed ample manpower. Secondly, it facilitated the regime’s repressive tactics against opposition movements, notably the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members were generally unable to avoid imprisonment by escaping abroad. However, the legitimation benefits of a restrictive labour emigration policy dissipated once the Egyptian state was unable to economically sustain this policy: from the early 1960s onwards, overpopulation and urbanisation problems heightened, as rising levels of unemployment and the creation of an ineffective public sector took away from the legitimation appeal of a restrictive emigration policy.