States must be able to credibly signal resolve to follow through on threats and promises if they are to avoid costly wars and establish stable peace. But not all states are created equal: International Relations scholars have long held that democratic leaders are able to convey their intentions with greater credibility than their authoritarian counterparts. The democrats' advantage derives from more transparent policy-making processes, and electoral accountability that exacts higher “audience costs” from leaders who renege on public commitments. The paper builds on studies that recently challenged this conventional wisdom. Scholars disaggregated the concept of authoritarianism to show that threats issued by most authoritarian regimes were taken seriously as frequently as those issued by democracies. The exception are personalist regimes (ruled by charismatic leaders with small winning coalitions) and hegemonic regimes (where opposition wins representation, but the incumbent’s hold on power is secure). In these regimes, the link between domestic audiences and leader performance is considered too tenuous for accountability in any meaningful sense. Quantitative analyses place Nasser’s Egypt squarely in the exception category, but this paper’s qualitative study of Nasser’s foreign policy behaviour differs. Based on archival and public documents, media reports and memoires, it argues that while Nasser was relatively free of institutional constraints, he was bound by societal constraints that credibly defined his room for manoeuvre on core issues. This is because Nasser’s personalist, hegemonic authoritarian regime was at the same time distinctively populist: a regime whose legitimacy rested on an unmediated bond between a charismatic leader and hitherto marginalised segments of society, increasingly engaged in the political process. Regime survival depended on inducing—rather than coercing—the masses to refrain from mobilising against it. Populism is, by definition, a system in which political commitments exceed available resources. Therefore, as his regime’s legitimacy base broadened, Nasser’s capacity to control it increasingly depended on his ability to deliver on ever-grander promises, and his room-for-manoeuvre progressively narrowed. The paper focuses on 1967-1970, a period strewn with belligerent and conciliatory moves that have baffled Nasser’s contemporaries and historians for their seemingly mercurial nature. It shows that when core values that are relatively enduring were at stake, such as Palestine, the credibility of Nasser’s foreign policy initiatives could be read in the context of change and regularities in his modes of engagement with the regime’s selectorate and legitimating public, with increasing accuracy over time.