POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA: EMPTY REFORMS FROM ABOVE

Abstract

This paper describes the impact that rapid economic change has had on the political evolution of Saudi Arabia from six different perspectives: 1. the institutionalization of the government; 2. loyalty with regard to the principal symbols of the government; 3. political liberty; 4. political participation; 5. absence of violence between different factions; 6. civil liberty. The Saudi Arabian experience would seem to suggest (a) that authoritarian forms of political power can be more effective and more easily justified in the first stages of economic development; (b) that the elite in power are not receptive to the progressive demand for a more democratic form of political organisation, and (c) that such a process of gradual transition from authoritarian to more democratic government could be delayed for a considerable time. In this sense, the political reforms known as `the Basic System of Rules', introduced by King Fayad in 1992 (as a consequence of the 1990 Gulf War) are nothing but empty reforms coming from above.