Madawi Al-Rasheed
LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series | 12 | December 2015
Abstract
Although all Arab monarchies (Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Jordan and Morocco) witnessed varying degrees of mass protest during the Arab uprisings of 2011, none of the kings and princes has thus far been deposed. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia saw pockets of sporadic protest in many cities in the early months of 2011, but those failed to evolve into a mass protest movement across the country. This paper analyses the conditions that helped maintain Saudi stability, attributing it to a combination of domestic and regional factors. This paper highlights how the conditions that led to monarchical resilience over the last five years may result in unexpected upheavals in the future.
About the Author
Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the LSE Middle East Centre and Research Fellow at the Open Society Foundation. She is the author of several books on Saudi Arabia, including A Most Masculine State (Cambridge University Press, 2013), A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Contesting the Saudi State (Cambridge University Press, 2007). She has also edited several volumes including Dying for Faith (I.B. Tauris, 2009), Kingdom without Borders (Hurst, 2009), and Demystifying the Caliphate (Hurst, 2012).