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| Volume XIII, Summer 2006, Number 2 |
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BOOK REVIEW
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Saudia Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Soceity, Foreign Affairs, edited by Paul Aarts and Gerd Nonneman. London: Hurst and Company, 2005. 462 pp. $50.00, hard cover.
Brooks Wrampelmeier
U.S. Foreign Service (ret.); consul general, Dhahran 1987-1989
Saudi Arabia has always seemed a mystery to most Americans. An important U.S. ally that controls the world's largest known reserves of oil and is a major supplier of petroleum to the United States is also the homeland for perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and a traditional monarchy closely allied with Wahhabism, an obscurantist school of Islam that does not permit women to drive. Since 9/11, a number of books have appeared that purport to explain Saudi Arabia to an American audience. Some have been insightful and instructive; others have been characterized by prejudice or by plain ignorance of the kingdom and its unique political, economic, cultural and religious character. A new book that takes a balanced and multifaceted look at recent developments and challenges in Saudi Arabia and seeks to make them comprehensible is therefore most welcome.
Saudi Arabia in the Balance is the outcome of an international workshop held in Leiden in February 2004. The book brings a wide range of perspectives and areas of expertise to bear on recent ideological, economic, political and foreign affairs trends. All fifteen contributors are well-regarded academic specialists on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. Most are European, but three are of Saudi or other Arab origin and one is Israeli; only one is American. Following a brief introduction by the two editors, the book is divided into four main parts, each containing three to four chapters. In a closing chapter, the two editors sum up the evidence and assess the interaction of Wahhabi ideology, domestic economics and politics, and foreign affairs for the future of Saudi Arabia.
In Part I - Ideology and Change, three chapters deal with the nature of Wahhabism and its influence on the politics and culture of Saudi Arabia. Guido Steinberg traces the history of the over-250-year relationship between the Saudi state and the Wahhabi ulema, or Muslim religious scholars. He argues that the latter have shown considerable political pragmatism by siding with the Al Saud rulers even when that conflicted with their religious convictions. On several crucial occasions - the Ikhwan revolt in 1929, the seizure by radical Wahhabis of the Mecca mosque in 1979, and the decision to allow U.S. combat troops into the kingdom in 1990-91 - senior ulema endorsed the government position and gave it legitimacy. Since the 1990s, however, younger and more uncompromising Wahhabi scholars have challenged the credibility of the "establishment" ulema, thereby weakening the latter's collective influence among the deeply religious Saudi population. Critical of the Saudi state and antagonistic to the United States, some of these younger scholars have expressed sympathies for the Afghani Taliban and even Osama bin Laden.
Stéphane Lacroix discusses the significance of the open struggle for the soul of Wahhabism that emerged in the 1990s between "Islamo-liberal" reformers and "Neo-Salafists," who reject the Saudi state's legitimacy. This chapter will likely appeal more to specialists than to general readers, but it is important in underlining the intellectual currents that are framing the debate over political and religious reform within the kingdom. The third chapter in this section, by Michaela Prokop, examines the battle over reform of the Saudi education system, heavily dominated by religious subjects, to make it more relevant to changing economic and demographic conditions and to remove from the curriculum teachings that emphasized intolerance toward other cultures, religions and even other interpretations of Islam.
Part II - Political Economy contains chapters addressing the challenges of economic reform. Monica Malek and Tim Niblock provide a useful summary of recent legal, administrative and fiscal reforms designed to support Saudi Arabia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). The authors question whether these reforms go far enough to meet two critical objectives: creating an economy that will be viable when oil revenues decline and providing productive employment for a growing population. Steffen Hertog assesses the impact on economic reform of "clientelism" in both the public and private sectors. Family, tribal and regional affiliations create segmented and hierarchical "fiefdoms" based on patronage that impede communication and cooperation across institutional boundaries and create obstacles to effective implementation of structural change. Hertog notes that the private sector, still relatively small and largely dependent on the state-based distribution of oil revenues, is only selectively interested in economic reform and is insufficiently united to press the government for greater economic liberalization.
Giacomo Luciani essentially agrees with Hertog that the emerging Saudi "national bourgeoisie," still closely entwined with the ruling family, at present lacks the organization or motivation to press the government for more rapid privatization and political reforms. Numerous wealthy Saudis exist, but few are entrepreneurs willing to create new industries at home. Many hold their assets abroad. Luciani believes that Saudi capitalists are committed to investing at home but complain that they find insufficient investment opportunities there. Consequently, the state has often initiated investments in which the private sector is then invited to participate. Many companies traded on the Saudi stock market are actually dominated by state-owned interests.
In Part III - Regime and Opposition, Madawi Al-Rasheed argues that there is ample evidence to support the view that tension within Saudi society is acute, manifested by rising urban violence and petitions for reform. Professor Al-Rasheed, no fan of the Al Saud rulers, asserts that the basis for the family's legitimacy is eroding as its traditional appeal to religious and cultural norms are being questioned. She describes the ruling family as "several circles of power within a headless tribe" in which senior princes, including Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah and the full brothers of the late King Fahd, compete against each other. The regime survives primarily because it uses both coercion and co-optation to weaken its Islamist and secular-nationalist opponents.
Iris Glosemeyer examines the informal checks and balances within the Saudi political system. These include not only the rivalries among royal family factions but those between the royal family and the Wahhabi ulema and among the several military and internal security forces (e.g., the police and National Guard) each headed by senior princes. Following the first Gulf War and especially since the terrorist incidents inside the kingdom since 2003, the regime has taken some long-overdue steps toward limited political reform. In January 2003, Abdullah published a Charter for Reform, to include plans for the partial election of municipal councils, and instituted national dialogues in which women were permitted to participate. However, calls for a constitutional monarchy and political demonstrations have been suppressed. In Glosmeyer's opinion, the regime's reaction only prolongs the process of substituting a broad coalition of citizens for Najdi Wahhabi scholars as the basis of the regime's legitimacy.
Two chapters deal with the political opposition to the Al Saud. Abdulaziz Sager states that Arab nationalist and leftist ideologies never found much acceptance in Saudi Arabia. In contrast, Islamist criticism of the monarchy grew dramatically after the 1990-91 Gulf war, arising from opposition to the presence in the region of U.S. troops and the perceived plight of Muslims in Palestine, the Balkans, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Most Saudi Islamists do not call for the regime's downfall but rather for an end to the corruption and indulgence of the princes and for a revival of traditional Islamic values based on Islamic law, the Sharia. Moreover, there is strong suspicion in Saudi Arabia about the Bush administration's announced policy to encourage democratic political reforms. But the Islamist opposition is divided. Some have been co-opted by the regime; others are in exile. Although many Saudis have grievances over foreign policy and socioeconomic frustrations, only a small number of jihadists have resorted to violence against the Western presence and the government. This element is the subject of Roel Meijer's chapter on the limited effectiveness of the terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia attributed to followers of Osama bin Laden and the shadowy al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (QAP). Meijer describes in some detail the QAP membership, structure and tactics as well as the security forces' successes in killing or capturing many of its people. He concludes that, in turning their violence against the state and ordinary Saudis, the QAP has alienated much of the population and failed to gain many allies or sympathizers.
Part IV - External Relations deals with the kingdom's regional and international affairs. Gerd Nonneman offers a fairly complex theory-based analysis of the determinants and patterns of Saudi foreign policy. To preserve its domestic and external security, Saudi Arabia must "omnibalance" among its domestic, regional and Islamic environments. As Saudi oil revenues declined in the 1980s, the regime became less able to provide subsidies and patronage to sustain its legitimacy at home. This, in turn, reduced its room for maneuver in foreign affairs, even as the security situation in its region became more dangerous. Meanwhile, the Saudis find themselves in a changing global environment that has produced domestic concerns about their security dependence on the United States and fears of damage to local socioeconomic interests from globalization and cultural penetration from the outside. While foreign-policy decision making remains in the hands of a few senior princes friendly to the United States, countervailing interests and forces are at work that have made it expedient for the regime also to cultivate ties with other world powers, e.g., the UK and now China.
Joseph Kostiner examines Abdullah's February 2002 Middle East peace initiative. He argues that the initiative was not really intended to solve the Palestine-Israeli conflict, as no strategy to do so was ever set forth. Rather, it was to respond to growing tensions in the Saudi-U.S. relationship after 9/11 and to establish Riyadh within the region as "the coordinator of U.S.-Arab policies." Kostiner thinks that Abdullah's initiative successfully enhanced Saudi standing somewhat with Washington and within the Middle East but was unsuccessful in diverting the United States from its concerns over perceived Saudi links with terrorism.
It is often stated that the U.S.-Saudi relationship is based on "oil for security." Rachel Bronson of the Council on Foreign Relations terms this explanation a "caricature," asserting that the relationship was based instead primarily on their mutual interest in opposing the Soviet Union and its allies and proxies in the Middle East, e.g., Egypt's Nasser. This coincidence of interests enabled both governments to cooperate closely despite U.S. support for Israel, the Saudi oil embargo of 1973-74, and Congressional objections to arms sales to the kingdom and Saudi restrictions on non-Muslims. By the 1990s, however, the Cold War had ended, and this consensus began to break down rapidly. The Saudis were losing confidence in U.S. regional policies, and close U.S.-Saudi relations were becoming increasingly unpopular in both countries. The old partnership was badly shaken by the events of 9/11. Americans blamed Saudi Arabians for promoting an austere and sometimes violent strand of Islam worldwide; Saudis resented U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as restrictions on their travel to the United States and pressures to curtail their charitable support for Islamic causes. U.S.-Saudi relations soon began to improve, however, as the kingdom found itself also a target of jihadist attacks, and the two governments increased cooperation in fighting terrorists and their financial supporters. Bronson is cautiously optimistic that working together against terrorism and its support structures could replace the former struggle against Communist ideology as a new basis for the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
In contrast to Dr. Bronson, Paul Aarts believes that the old logic of Saudi energy for U.S. security remains valid, and that enough common interests remain, including the war on terror, to sustain the U.S.-Saudi relationship. In Aarts's view, the relationship never relied on broad-based public support on either side but was always "an elite bargain." Given uncertainties about the future of Iraq and Iran, the Saudis will continue to want the United States as a major supplier of arms and training to the kingdom, but with a much less visible military presence. Aarts discounts the likelihood that Iraq or any other oil state will displace Saudi Arabia as the "swing producer"; indeed, he argues that the United States is likely to become more rather than less dependent on Saudi oil. Given growing Chinese demand for oil, he considers that the West needs to invest more in development of Saudi Arabia's productive capacity.
From a reading of these chapters, several significant conclusions could be drawn. First and foremost, the House of Saud is not about to collapse. The regime definitely faces major challenges on the ideological, political, socio-economic and foreign-policy fronts. Despite its supposed factions, the Al Saud managed with apparent smoothness the succession of Abdullah following King Fahd's death last summer. The ruling family's traditional reliance on the religious establishment to uphold its legitimacy is certainly under strain, but the regime has shown a significant degree of pragmatism in reaching out to its critics. Thus far, the Al Saud rulers have reduced the religious establishment's authority, particularly in the controversial areas of education and charitable giving, and have been able to co-opt or coerce many of their Islamist opponents. However, they have fallen well short of abandoning reliance on religious legitimacy for a more secular and democratic popular base, e.g., an elected rather than an appointed Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Assembly).
Second, despite some serious economic reforms, movement from an economy dependent on government distribution of oil-based revenues to one emphasizing the private sector faces numerous obstacles, both structural and cultural. In order to join the WTO last December, the Saudis took important steps to liberalize foreign-trade and investment regulations but, as Hertog points out, numerous informal networks maintain vested interests in the system of state distribution of revenue and are likely to resist some reforms, including those that give foreign investors a more even playing field in the private sector. So long as this situation continues, the Saudi business community, while growing in importance and international reach, is not likely to press hard for democratic reforms or for opening the Saudi oil sector to foreign investors.
Third, the old U.S.-Saudi relationship has changed but will continue to evolve as both countries look for new bases for cooperation. In both countries, popular support for the relationship has eroded and both governments will need to work even harder to overcome the alienation and mistrust created by the events of 9/11 and the U.S. response. The Saudis are ambivalent about current U.S. policies in the region, especially in Iraq, and are uneasy about the Bush administration's announced efforts to democratize the Middle East. Fortunately, President Bush and King Abdullah appear to have established a good personal relationship, and each government recognizes the need to explain itself better to the other's public.
Moreover, the two governments have found common ground in working to dismantle al-Qaeda and its financial support groups, and the Saudis continue to look to the United States as their principal ally against external threats from the region. Despite allegations that the extent of Saudi oil reserves is exaggerated and calls in Congress for steps to reduce U.S. reliance on imports of Middle Eastern oil, over the medium to long term, the international community will continue to depend upon Saudi Arabia as the "swing producer" to meet growing world oil demand. Therefore, the kingdom's stability and independence will surely continue to be a major, if not vital, U.S. geostrategic interest.
In their introduction, the editors express the hope that this book will be useful to policy makers and the general public as well as to specialists on Saudi Arabia. However, they also want these contributions to serve as case studies for students of political science and international relations theory. Unfortunately, most of the chapters seem designed more for other academics than for the general public. Readers not familiar with academic concepts such as "rentier-state theory," "segmented clientelism," "social movements and the cycle of contention," or "omnibalancing" and the "political pluralist" (or "polygamous") school of international relations may find some chapters heavy going. This does not lessen the value of the insights presented, but it will make the book less accessible to busy policy makers and non-specialist readers.
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