Analyzing modernization in Saudi Arabia and its Impact on the Political Stability of the Country

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 department of regional studies, faculty of law and political sciences, Tehran university, Tehran, Iran

2 department of regional studies, faculty of law and political science, Tehran university, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Modernization is a process that all countries, sooner or later,, have experienced or are experiencing. Saudi Arabia entered this process after the discovery of oil, But with the expansion of communications, this process has gained momentum in the last two decades. Modernization has various cultural, political, economic, and social dimensions. Due to the fact that the modernization program in Saudi Arabia includes all of the aforementioned aspects (although with economic priority), the reflections of these changes in the society and their impact on the government's political stability are considered important issues. In the first step of this article, we provide practical and operational indicators of modernization. But the main discussion in this article is the effect of the modernization process on the political stability of Saudi Arabia based on the specified factors. According to the definition of political stability/instability that we present, we come to the conclusion that in some cases, modernization brings instability to the government and in some others, modernization has not given a suitable response to social demands and has the potential to create a challenge and instability. All in all, in the continuous spectrum of stability/instability, the Saudi government has taken steps towards stability, and the social reforms that have been carried out have a lower probability of instability, despite being symbolic in some dimensions.

Keywords

References

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Crisis Studies of the Islamic World
Volume 9, Issue 2 - Serial Number 25
Summer Quarterly
September 2022
Pages 17-40

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