Governance and Domestic Policymaking in Saudi Arabia: Transforming Society, Economics, Politics and Culture

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Description

Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Plan 2020 are governmental initiatives to diversify Saudi Arabias economy and implement nationwide social changes. Media and scholarly attention often describe the success or failure of these ambitious visions. This book shifts the focus to instead examine and evaluate the actual processes of domestic policymaking and governance that are being mapped out to achieve them. The book is unique in its breadth, with case studies from across different sectors including labour markets, defence, health, youth, energy and the environment. Each analyses the challenges that the countrys leading institutions face in making, shaping and implementing the tailored policies that are being designed to change the country's future. In doing so, they reveal the factors that either currently facilitate or constrain effective and viable domestic policymaking and governance in the Kingdom. The study offers new and ground-breaking research based on the first-hand experiences of academics, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners who have privileged access to Saudi Arabia. At a time when analysis and reportage on Saudi Arabia usually highlights the high politics of foreign policy, this book sheds light on the low politics to show the extent to which Saudi policy, society, economics and culture is changing.

Reviews

Mark Thompson and Neil Quilliam have put together a masterful volume focused on some of the largest and most relevant issues facing Saudi Arabia today. Ranging from coverage of the Kingdoms efforts at economic reform to defense capacity, educational reform, and climate change, this timely collection features a number of studies important for students and policymakers alike, as Saudi Arabia emerges under Mohammed bin Salman as a distinct actor on the international and regional scene. * Courtney Freer, London School of Economics, UK *

Author Bio

Mark C. Thompson is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Socioeconomic Program at King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) in Saudi Arabia. He was previously Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. He has published Being Young Male and Saudi (2019) and Saudi Arabia and the Path to Political Change (I.B.Tauris, 2014), and is the co-editor of Policy-Making in the GCC (I.B.Tauris, 2017). Neil Quilliam is Managing Director at Azure Strategy Consulting in the UK and an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, London, UK where he headed the programmes Future Dynamics in the Gulf project. He has served as senior MENA energy adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), senior MENA analyst at Control Risks, London, and senior programme officer at the United Nations University, Jordan.