Saudi Arabia: dynastic monarchy of the sons of Ibn Saud (1953–2015)

Background

Abdulaziz ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Saud (Ibn Saud) conquered most of the Arabian Peninsula between 1902 and the 1920s, in alliance with the Wahhabi religious movement, and proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Oil was discovered in 1938 by an American concession company that became Aramco. Before his death in November 1953 Abdulaziz created a Council of Ministers and designated his eldest surviving son, Saud, as heir. Saud's rule (1953–1964) was marked by fiscal crisis and a struggle with his brother Faisal; in 1964 senior princes and the religious scholars (ulama) deposed Saud and made Faisal king. Madawi al-Rasheed traces how this episode established the family itself, not the individual king, as the ultimate holder of power.

How it was governed

• Absolute monarchy without a written constitution until 1992. The king was head of state and government and the source of law by royal decree, within Islamic law as interpreted by state-appointed scholars. There were no elected national bodies and no political parties.
• Dynastic monarchy. Michael Herb uses the term "dynastic monarchy" for the Gulf model in which members of the ruling family occupy the top ministries (defence, interior, foreign affairs, the National Guard, provincial governorships) and collectively choose the ruler. The crown passed laterally among sons of Abdulaziz: Saud, Faisal (1964–1975, assassinated by a nephew), Khalid (1975–1982), Fahd (1982–2005), Abdullah (2005–2015) and Salman (from January 2015). Stig Stenslie shows how succession by seniority among brothers kept the peace inside a large family but produced ever older kings.
• Fiefdoms and islands of efficiency. Steffen Hertog describes a state built in segments: senior princes ran their ministries as personal domains with their own clienteles, which made coordination hard, while a few agencies (Aramco, the central bank, some industrial corporations) were insulated and highly competent.
• Codification after the Gulf war. After the 1990–91 Gulf war and petitions from liberal and Islamist critics, King Fahd issued the Basic Law of Governance (1992), which declares the Quran and the Sunna the constitution and vests rule in the sons of Abdulaziz and their descendants; an appointed Consultative Council (Majlis al-Shura) and a regional government law followed. In 2006 King Abdullah issued the Allegiance Commission Law, creating a council of the founder's sons and grandsons to take part in choosing the crown prince. Partial municipal elections were held in 2005 and 2011; women voted and stood for the first time in 2015.

Economy: rents, welfare and the religious bargain

Oil revenue, especially after the price rises of 1973–74 and the full state takeover of Aramco by 1980, funded free education and health care, subsidised utilities and fuel, interest-free housing loans, public employment for most citizens and no personal income tax. World Bank estimates put natural-resource rents at about 43 percent of GDP in 2000 and 55 percent in 2008. In Hazem Beblawi's and Giacomo Luciani's terms, the state was a "rentier" distributor rather than a tax collector, and Michael Ross's work suggests that such states face weaker pressure for representation. The religious establishment received control over education, courts and public morality; after the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by militants, the state expanded the religious police and conservative religious rules.

Repression and rights

Opposition was banned and dissent prosecuted. Shia citizens in the Eastern Province faced discrimination, and protests there in 1979 and in 2011–2013 were suppressed. The founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association were imprisoned from 2013. Women needed a male guardian's permission for travel, marriage and many official procedures and could not drive. Migrant workers, a large share of the labour force, were bound to employers under the kafala system.

Outcomes

The dynastic system delivered more than six decades of regime continuity through oil booms and busts, the assassination of a king, the 1979 Mecca uprising, the 1990–91 Gulf war and the Arab uprisings of 2011, when the state answered with large spending packages and repression. It also produced a gerontocracy: by 2015 the remaining eligible sons of Abdulaziz were in their seventies and eighties, and the question of passing power to the next generation had not been settled.

Lessons for institution design

• A family can work as a selectorate. Collective choice by senior princes provided a check on the king and a rule for succession, without any popular participation.
• Seniority rules are stable but age the leadership. Lateral succession avoided fights between sons and uncles, at the cost of ever older rulers.
• Rents create fiefdoms as well as welfare. Hertog's analysis shows that money can buy loyalty but also fragments the state.

Further reading

• Madawi al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (CUP, 2010)
• Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats (Cornell, 2010)
• Stig Stenslie, Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia (Routledge, 2012)
• Michael Herb, All in the Family (SUNY Press, 1999)