Saudi Arabia is one of the least free and least democratic nations on Earth, in my opinion. As such, it is understandable that dewy-eyed idealists would be tempted to project their dubious prophecies of the inevitable global march towards democratic utopia on this quintessential mascot of tyranny. But the world is not so simple.
Revolutions are rarely solely the result of spontaneous populist revolts against an unpopular government. Funnelling anger into coordinated political action is a difficult process, particularly when under the scrutiny of well-equipped internal security services, something the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly possesses.
Dissent needs some sort of direction, usually supplied by a class with some autonomous organizational capacity — such as the bourgeoisie salons of 18 century France, indigenous bureaucracy in the British Raj, or the Shi’a clergy in Pahlavi Iran.
Revolutions are rarely solely the result of spontaneous populist revolts against an unpopular government.
However, Saudi Arabia has a level of elite integration that most authoritarian states can only dream of. Few positions of administrative, economic, or coercive power fall outside the control of the royal family. And while the House of Saud is not a monolithic entity, it closes ranks when it needs to, bound together by kinship and interest.
Any non-royal factions who could form the nuclei for dissent are continuously bought off with concessions. The Wahhabi religious establishment is given free rein over moral policing and coveted access to state media. Tribal leaders are placated with prestigious royal marriages. Commoner merchants are given enough of the economic pie to be kept complacent, particularly in the oil industry. Ordinary citizens are effectively robbed of their potential articulators of opposition, since all elites find relative comfort in the status quo.
While it is true Saudi Arabia has an overextended welfare system, it is hardly the first nation to do so. Many far more impoverished and financially mismanaged regimes have managed to prolong fat welfare states well beyond their expected expiration dates.
Next to no one wants to see the Saudi state implode. Not only is it the world’s second largest oil producer, but any unrest in the kingdom would cast a shadow over the rest of the Gulf as well, endangering the stability of the world’s most critical energy hub.
The international community, which would loath to see oil prices skyrocket or jihadists establish a new base, would be willing to move heaven and earth to prevent this from happening. When the time comes that Riyadh exhausts its own pockets, it will always have the fallback option of tapping others.
Finally, it must be acknowledged that while revolutions can be infectious, so can the fatigue of them. Certainly the results of the Arab Spring have left little in the way of inspiration. Tunisia struggles to establish a working political system. Syria is torn apart in bloody civil war. Libya has decentralized beyond recognition as a cohesive state. And chaos-plagued Egyptians saw the restoration of what I would call their ancien-régime this past summer.
In today’s Middle East, the ever-invoked mantra of tyrants “après moi, le deluge” has never looked more attractive.
