Search results
traditional sectarian, tribal and family assabiya to create cores of trusted followers around the leader similar to royal families in the monarchies. (3) In their search for legitimisation, state elites made use of sub- and supra-state identities to make up for thin popular identifications with the state itself. In the monarchies patriarchal loyalties and Islam were the favoured formula; in the republics Pan-Arabism, the official ideology, was buttressed by the exploitation of sub-state loyalties, whether it was Tikriti solidarity in Iraq or that of
, foreign policy decisions are taken consensually by the King and senior princes of the royal family, producing caution and continuity in policy, deeply reflective of Saudi Arabia’s character as a status quo power. The muted competition which exists within the royal family also encourages a risk-averse attempt to appease – ‘bandwagon’ between – conflicting pressures from the West and the Arab world. Thus, the preferences of the ‘Suderi Seven’ – notably King Fahd, Defence Minster Prince Sultan and Interior Minister Prince Nayef – for a Western alliance and Western
example, Douglas Chalmers, 1977 . Although Chalmers was discussing Latin America, his idea of the politicized state can also be applied to the Middle East, where royal families or other groups tied together for various reasons have seized control of the state and held on to power with no intention of giving it up willingly. REFERENCES
or are Gulf-based, oil-linked or banking firms. Rent and indirect taxation such as import duties relieve most states of dependency on the bourgeoisie for tax revenues, which might give the latter the leverage to demand a share of power, and business is often quite dependent on the state (for contracts, licenses, etc.). Business lacks the institutionalised access and clout it enjoys in developed capitalist states: in the authoritarian republics, the military and bureaucracy and in the monarchies, royal families dominate foreign policy making. In more liberal states