Description
Book SynopsisIn Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats, the most thorough treatment of the political economy of Saudi Arabia to date, Steffen Hertog uncovers an untold history of how the elite rivalries and whims of half a century ago have shaped today''s Saudi state and are reflected in its policies.
Starting in the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious reform campaign to remedy its long-term economic stagnation. The results have been puzzling for both area specialists and political economists: Saudi institutions have not failed across the board, as theorists of the rentier state would predict, nor have they achieved the all-encompassing modernization the regime has touted. Instead, the kingdom has witnessed a bewildering mélange of thorough failures and surprising successes.
Hertog argues that it is traits peculiar to the Saudi state that make sense of its uneven capacities. Oil rents since World War II have shaped Saudi state institutions in ways that are far from uniform.
Trade Review
Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats is an extraordinary book. Impressively researched, insightful, and lucidly written, Steffen Hertog has laid bare the complexity of the Saudi state, including its history, the ways the state functions, the impact of oil wealth on its institutions, and the behavior of its bureaucrats.... It is no exaggeration to write that Hertog's book is the finest book ever written on politics and the state in Saudi Arabia, an unparalleled achievement.... Hertog’s work reveals a number of wrinkles in the conventional wisdom on Saudi Arabia and the politics of oil states. Inefficiency and corruption exist in Saudi Arabia but so, too, do efficiency and professionalism. Where rentier theory predicts uniform patterns of government behavior, particularly in regard to corruption and paralyzing rent seeking, Hertog finds diverse patterns of behavior.... This book is the clearest and best documented work yet on the nuts and bolts of the Saudi government as well as its complicated bureaucracy and distribution of power.
-- Toby C. Jones * International Journal of Middle East Studies *
It is an ability to see how politics shapes the structure and operations of the contemporary Saudi state that distinguishes Hertog's book. In a work characterized throughout by rigorous analysis, astute historical reflection and sharp observation, Hertog brilliantly illustrates the complexities and contradictions of an Arab rentier state.
-- G. J. H. Dowling * Middle East Policy *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Unpacking the Saudi State: Oil Fiefdoms and Their Clients
Part I: Oil and History
2. Oil Fiefdoms in Flux: The New Saudi State in the 1950s
3. The Emerging Bureaucratic Order under Faisal
4. The 1970s Boom: Bloating the State and Clientelizing Society
Part II: Policy-Making in Segmented Clientelism
5. The Foreign Investment Act: Lost between Fiefdoms
6. Eluding the "Saudization" of Labor Markets
7. The Fragmented Domestic Negotiations over WTO Adaptation
8. Comparing the Case Studies, Comparing Saudi Arabia
