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Reviewed by:
  • Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia
  • David E. Long (bio)
Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia, by Steffen Hertog. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2010. xii + 275 pages. Refs. to p. 288. Index to p. 297. $35.

This book addresses the Saudi state's evolution from a poor, isolated tribal principality in the world into one of the world's most important and wealthiest oil states, all to a great extent within living memory. It is a phenomenon that has often been discussed and has been witnessed by many expatriate Western technocrats and businessmen, but seldom has been addressed accurately or in depth.

Following an introductory chapter, the book is divided into two parts: "Oil and History," which is about the evolution of the oil state following World War II up to me 1973 Arab oil embargo that created unprecedented wealth, both in the public and private economic sectors; and "Policy-Making in Segmented Clientelism," which addresses the impact oil-financed modernization on government decision-making and bureaucracy, and how that affected Saudi [End Page 672] society in general. The style of the book is mainly descriptive narrative. Due to the author's personal experience and meticulous research, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the bureaucratic politics of Saudi Arabia and the relationship between the government and the people.

It is also highly theoretical, rooted in academic international relations and political science "behavioral theory." The author's thesis is that the impact of oil wealth on Saudi government and society has been to create a system of "oil fiefdoms" and "clients." He begins by introducing "rentier state" theory as a leading framework for describing oil states such as Saudi Arabia, in which the economy is dominated by state-owned oil and gas resources. According to the theory, this creates an oil-dependent society, pervasive administrative corruption, and a lack of government oversight or regulatory capacity. The corruption centers on "rent-seeking," which refers to income derived from exports of government-owned natural resources such as oil. Thus the focus of government domestic economic policy is how to trickle down oil revenues to its citizens, while the focus of the citizens is how to obtain as much financially as possible from the nation's natural recourses.

In validating his thesis, however, the author posits that while rentier state theory contains a valid overview of oil economies in general, it is too simplistic to explain the evolution of the modern Saudi state. This reviewer believes that this conclusion is totally valid. But it is also to a great degree like destroying a "straw man." I must admit that my view is biased against "behavioral science" theories in general. To understand political, economic, and social behavior, I believe that one must begin with social psychology and cultural anthropology. I have never thought that rentier state theory was a valid pursuit.

In that context, I would have to take issue with how the author treats the evolution of the modern Saudi state. The evolution to modernity did not start in the early 1950s as he claims, or even in the late 1940s when significant oil revenues began to flow. Ancient Arabian culture overlaid in the 7th century with Islamic norms and values are still predominant. I would choose 1926 as the starting date, when 'Abd al-Aziz Al Saud annexed the Hijaz. Before then, he had no formal government institutions. The ruler made policy based on person-to-person consultation (shura) with tribal leaders and influential merchants leading to consensus (ijma'). Consensus legitimized public (as well as family and business) decisions then, and still does.

'Abd al-Aziz used Hijazi ministers throughout his realm until national ministries were created, beginning with the Foreign Ministry in 1930. Even then, however, there has never been a master plan for creating government institutions. They have always been established and reorganized as seemed needed. Behaviorally, therefore, much government policy-making, fiefdoms, and clientelizing that the author attributes to the coming of the oil era is in fact centuries or even millennia old.

This is not to underestimate the great political, economic, and social changes that have occurred as a...

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