Political Uprisings and the Arab Monarchies

THIS BOOK is primarily about the survival of Saudia Arabia monarchy. Applying some aspects of rentier-state model, the metaphor of father and family, and the functional superiority perspective and predominantly based on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's experience, this study sought to unravel factors that have enabled the monarchical regimes of the Middle East to survive the ongoing upheavals in the region. While the region-wide upheavals have swept away the republican regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and Qatar, among others, have remained largely intact, raising the questions as to why and how they have been able to stem the tides of collapse. In response to this question, it was argued here that the ability of long-established regimes to mobilize resources-both material and non-material-to strategically and tactically deal with internal discontents provides a framework to analyze regime survival. It must, however, be noted that regime survival does not necessarily connote state or regime stability, if stability refers to absence of sociopolitical frictions and political schism.