Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges of Security

Abstract

In the era of the Arab Spring,¹ Saudi Arabia has been one of a very small group of relatively unaffected Arab countries. Although there is increasing economic, social, and political pressure on the state, the Kingdom remains immune from the surprisingly widespread political upheavals; this immunity reveals mainly that the Saudi state’s sources of legitimacy are deeper than is usually conceived abroad. To put things into a wider context, changes within the domestic Saudi environment, which take the form of pressures, demands, and responses, were beginning gradually to occur long before the Arab Spring (having followed the 1990–1991 Gulf War). To this extent, we can speak about Saudi Arabia before the Arab Spring as “a kingdom in transition through evolution, not revolution.” In fact, the Arab Spring is merely a milestone, like many others that the Kingdom has previously had to contend with. However, it may just be the most important milestone so far, since it represents an intensification and accumulation of the previous milestones that may result in certain long-term though conditional changes within the domestic Saudi environment. The impact of the Arab Spring on Saudi Arabia’s domestic environment requires a separate and detailed analysis, and therefore will not be part of this chapter’s inquiry.