Political Economy of Transformation in Saudi Arabia

2022-9
Akgün, Oğuzhan
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Saudi Arabia announced the “Vision 2030” program in 2016 as the last of the long-term economic diversification plans announced by the Gulf, under the management of Mohammad bin Salman. Following the program, a number of changes began to take place in the country. These changes cover a wide framework ranging from the cultural silhouette of the country to the reshaping of the bureaucratic structure. The aim of this thesis is to describe these changes as a transformation effort and to try to explain them in a multi-scalar and relational way by making use of the opportunities provided by the Rentier State Theory literature and the Economic Diversification literature. In the thesis, dimensions of the alleged “transformation” and its reflections on the Saudi society are discussed by using up-to-date statistics and data to support qualitative research. This discussion aims at demonstrating how the requirements and threat perceptions created by local, regional and global geopolitical and geoeconomic developments and changes on Saudi decision makers interact with the political capacities of the decision makers and nature of the Saudi socio-economic structure, and how these factors mediate with each other. In the post-2016 period, it is claimed that decision-making mechanisms have been consolidated in the hands of a small group. Although the economic development strategy aimed to bring the private sector to the fore, the weight of the state on the economy increased through the Wealth Fund and, simultaneously, neoliberal policies were to be deepened in a controlled way.
Economic Diversification, Saudi Arabia, Rentier State Theory, State Capitalism, Economic and Social Transformation
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/99547
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats
O. Akgün, “Political Economy of Transformation in Saudi Arabia,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.
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