Abstract
An anti-Western revolution in Saudi Arabia would have severe negative consequences for the West, as the Kingdom possesses more proven petroleum reserves than any other country in the world. Indeed, the Saudi government has closely cooperated with the West in economic, political, and military affairs, and the United States has greatly benefited from its close partnership with the Kingdom ever since the discovery of oil there in the first part of the twentieth century. In fact, the strength and duration of Saudi-American cooperation has been remarkable, considering the many anti-American political movements and governments that have risen up during this period in the Middle East.
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Notes
This literature is far too voluminous to cite in its entirety. Essays discussing contending theories of revolution can be found in Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994
Nikki R. Keddie (ed.), Debating Revolutions, New York: New York University Press, 1995
John Foran (ed.), Theorizing Revolutions, London: Routledge, 1997
Mark N. Katz, Reflections on Revolutions, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 14–18.
Eqbal Ahmad, “Comments on Skocpol,” Theory and Society 11: 3, 1982, pp. 293–300
Jeffrey D. Simon, Revolution without Guerrillas, R-3683-RC, Santa Monica: RAND, 1989
Farideh Farhi, States and Urban-Based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Ibid. See also Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.
Rayed Krimly, “The Political Economy of Adjusted Priorities: Declining Oil Revenues and Saudi Fiscal Policies,” The Middle East Journal 53:2, spring 1999, pp. 254-67.
See also Nawaf Obaid and Patrick Clawson, “The 1999 Saudi Budget: Reform in the Face of Acute Problems,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policywatch, number 359, January 5, 1999.
For just one of many recent articles on declining standards of living in Saudi Arabia, see Douglas Jehl, “Life in Saudi Arabia Is Transformed by Hard Times,” The New York Times, 20 March 1999.
Michael Herb, All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999, p. 32.
See Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1978.
See also Jack A. Goldstone, “The Comparative and Historical Study of Revolutions,” Annual Review of Sociology, 1982, pp. 192–194.
Howard Schneider, “Saudi Arabia Finds Calm after Storm,” The Washington Post, January 9, 2000, pp. A1, A23.
Mamoun Fanny, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Nazih N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, London: Routledge, 1991, p. 238.
For a similar argument, see Found Ajami, “The Summoning,” Foreign Affairs 72:4, September/October 1993, pp. 2–9.
Mark N. Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, p. 113.
Gwenn Okruhlik, “Excluded Essentials: The Politics of Ethnicity, Oil, and Citizenship in Saudi Arabia,” in Pinar Batur-Vanderlippe and Joe Feagin (eds.), The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and Struggle from a Global Perspective (Research in Politics and Society, volume 6), Stamford, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1999, pp. 215–35.
William J. Taylor Jr. and James Blackwell, “The Ground War in the Gulf,” Survival 33:3 May/June 1991, pp. 230–45
Adam Roberts, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” Survival 41:3, autumn 1999, pp. 102-23.
Bruce W. Jentleson, “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the Use of Military Force,” International Studies Quarterly 36: 1, March 1992, pp. 49–74.
For an analysis of the evolution of American public opinion on the war in Vietnam, see Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 432–7.
R. Hrair Dekmejian, “Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Council,” The Middle East Journal 52:2, spring 1998, pp. 204–18; and Herb, All in the Family, pp. 169–70.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” Commentary, November 1979, p. 44.
Robert A. Pastor, “Preempting Revolutions: The Boundaries of U.S. Influence,” International Security 15:4, spring 1991, pp. 54–86.
See, for example, Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, London: Routledge, 1991, chapter 7
Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994, chapter 3.
Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993, chapter 2.
Joseph Kostiner, “State, Islam and Opposition in Saudi Arabia: The Post Desert-Storm Phase,” The Middle East Review of International Affairs, June 19, 1997, p. 4.
Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution, 3rd ed., New York: Vintage Books, 1965, p. 89.
Gary Sick, All Fall Down:America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran, New York: Penguin Books, 1986, pp. 165,198–201.
Fred Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974, p. 67. Halliday also reported that opposition movements were discovered within the Saudi armed forces in 1968 and 1969; Ibid., p. 68.
E Gregory Gause III, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994, p. 68.
David Kowalewski, “Periphery Revolutions in World-System Perspective, 1821–1985,” Comparative Political Studies 24: 1, April 1991, p. 92.
Jack A. Goldstone, “An Analytical Framework,” in Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri (eds.), Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century, Boulder: Westview Press, 1991, p. 40.
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© 2001 Joseph A. Kechichian
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Katz, M.N. (2001). Assessing Saudi Susceptibility to Revolution. In: Kechichian, J.A. (eds) Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-63443-9_7
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