Saudi Arabia In Transition

This book presents new insights and the most up-to-date research on Saudi Arabia's social, cultural, economic and political dynamics.

Great Britain's decision to withdraw its forces from the Gulf was a turning point in the modern history of the Middle East. Now regional players had to find rules of common coexistence. With the US immersed in the Vietnam war and the Soviet Union pursuing a policy of caution, there was no world power waiting to succeed Britain. As a result, Gulf politics "went local". This book examines how Iran influenced efforts to reorder the Gulf's political landscape. Its central argument is that a better understanding of the new Gulf order can be achieved by emphasizing local concerns and the degree to which regional powers influenced the policy of external powers in those times.

Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Plan 2020 are governmental initiatives to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy and implement nationwide social changes. Media and scholarly attention often describe the success or failure of these ambitious visions. This book shifts the focus to instead examine and evaluate the actual processes of domestic policymaking and governance that are being mapped out to achieve them. The book is unique in its breadth, with case studies from across different sectors including labour markets, defence, health, youth, energy and the environment. Each analyses the challenges that the country's leading institutions face in making, shaping and implementing the tailored policies that are being designed to change the country's future. In doing so, they reveal the factors that either currently facilitate or constrain effective and viable domestic policymaking and governance in the Kingdom. The study offers new and ground-breaking research based on the first-hand experiences of academics, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners who have privileged access to Saudi Arabia. At a time when analysis and reportage on Saudi Arabia usually highlights the 'high politics' of foreign policy, this book sheds light on the 'low politics' to show the extent to which Saudi policy, society, economics and culture is changing.

Although reform movements have been prominent in varying degrees in most Middle Eastern countries for some time, the cascade of events following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has generated new pressures for democratization throughout the Arab World. Political Change in the Arab Gulf States explores the politics influencing the volatile situation in the region, as well as specific measures devised by regimes in power to adjust to the challenges of the current environment. The authors first focus on the politics of seven Gulf states: Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. They then consider four forces that are shaping current political attitudes and behavior across the region: movements to broaden womenʹs political participation, the media, current US national security policy, and regional defense cooperation. The result is an up-to-date assessment of the prospects for political reform in the Gulf and an important corrective to a simplistic domino theory of democratization. -- Publisher description.