Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030: The Myth of the Modernizing Monarch
By Graci Biggio ‘21
In April 2016, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced his “Vision 2030” — an ostensibly progressive strategy to diversify the Saudi economy and synchronize Islam and modernity. In 2017, Salman led an “anti-corruption” purge of high-ranking government officials and has since staunchly discredited Islamic extremism, recognized the existence of Israel and initiated unprecedented social reforms by granting Saudi women the right to drive and liberalizing the nation’s entertainment industry. Most potently, Salman announced a series of economic reforms intended to curtail the nation’s dependence on oil through the partial privatization and initial public offering of Saudi Aramco.
On balance, the Prince’s agenda offers a beacon of hope for Saudi Arabia, a nation marked by its stark autocracy and economy rooted in the export of oil and terrorist ideology. Currently, approximately seventy percent of the kingdom’s population under the age of 30 are increasingly showing signs of alienation from the state and attraction to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and eighty-seven percent of the government’s revenue come from oil while eighty percent of employed Saudis are government employees. Recognizing the nation’s unsustainable socio-economic structure, Prince Salman’s agenda intends to widen the Saudi economy and produce greater opportunities for disillusioned Saudis vulnerable to radicalization. If Salman’s purported transformation is able become a reality, it would present a groundbreaking model for development in the Middle East.
While the Prince’s ambitious vision has seemingly positioned Saudi Arabia on a fast-track towards development, his strategy lacks a vital component — democratization. With the monarchy still intact, Vision 2030 is merely a smokescreen for a draconian agenda to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical influence and maintain its stability in an evolving global economy. The Saudi monarchy rightly recognized the value of a progressive narrative as a powerful agent for foreign investment and manipulated it to enhance the monarchy’s power both domestically and as an international actor. Crown Prince Salman spent billions of dollars on an international public relations campaign, touting the image of a modern, progressive Saudi monarchy that condemns Islamic extremism and offers its subjects unprecedented freedoms and opportunities. In turn, this narrative would enable Saudi Arabia to gain the respect of global superpowers and transform the kingdom into an “investment powerhouse” for global capital.
Despite Prince Salman’s self-portrayal as a liberalizing monarch, Saudi Arabia remains a retrograde autocracy. Subsequent to Salman’s ascendence to the throne, the Saudi regime restructured various government agencies, notably the judiciary, and rewrote counter-terrorism laws to curb dissent and imprison citizens for extended periods of time with little pretext. A bulk of this restructuring was accomplished through the Prince’s purge of “corrupt” government officials. According to Salman, the purge signaled that leading members of the Judiciary and other various bureaucracies are no longer “above the law” in an increasingly liberal Saudi Arabia. Far from a step towards a bona fide rule of law, the Prince’s intervention in judicial affairs reveals the way in which the Saudi regime is manipulating its institutions to create a “rule-by-law” system that exclusively serves Salman’s policy objectives.
Salman purged the head of the Interior Ministry and stripped the agency of its powers in intelligence and counterterrorism. In its place, the Prince established the Presidency of State Security, an entirely new agency directly under the authority of the King and is authorized to "conduct search, investigation, seizure, criminal and administrative prosecution” without judicial oversight. Virtually all prosecutions of human rights activists and protestors advocating political reform have been adjudicated by the Specialized Criminal Court designated to oversee terrorism cases. Following the elimination of the Interior Ministry, the court is now being used as an arbitrary weapon against dissent. In October 2017, the kingdom updated its counterterrorism laws to criminalize free expression, redefining acts of terrorism to apply anyone who describes the regime “in any way offensive to religion or justice.” By this definition, Prince Salman is able to completely control the discourse and preserve the image he has crafted for himself. Case in point, eleven Saudi activists connected to the campaign to end the kingdom’s longtime ban on driving were arrested and several remain detained. While Vision 2030 pledges that the regime will listen to citizen’s views and establish a rule of law to advance social reform, Salman’s crackdown on dissent has led to the imprisonment and, in some cases, execution of businessmen, clerics, reform activists, journalists and ordinary civilians. More than 2,600 Saudi dissidents have been detained as political prisoners basis of arbitrary charges.
Without political reform, Prince Salman’s plan reflects “modernization from above” tactics implemented in Middle Eastern countries to signal reform while preserving the privileges of elites. Salman’s notion that a private sector can be developed by the state rather than the people is both fundamentally flawed and reveals a disparity between his agenda to further development and simultaneously inhibit the necessary development of an independent society that could weaken his regime. The fact of the matter is, autocracy is antithetical to liberalization. Autocrats like Prince Salman are disinclined to establish independent political institutions, foster the rule of law or empower a prosperous civil society because it would open new channels for dissent. In authoritarian regimes, programs aimed at strengthening institutions and liberalizing the media only have the prospect of success when they are coupled with broader changes in the existing political structure. Otherwise, institutions that would successfully implement rule of law and reform civil society mainly function to enhance the privileges of the elite.
Prince Salman’s vision for Saudi Arabia is a viable one — his reforms would create a stronger sense of nationality and reduce Islamic extremism, generate a more diverse and sustainable economy and institute social reforms that reconcile Islam and modernity. In theory, Salman has the potential to provide a much needed model for development in the Middle East that addresses obstacles that have become deeply entrenched. Yet without some form of democracy and legitimate rule of law, Vision 2030 is a rhetorical ploy to preserve Prince Salman’s power, bolster Saudi Arabia’s regional influence over Iran and expand Saudi Arabia’s economic role in the international system. By touting a false image of himself as an advent for progress in the Middle East, Salman achieved some degree of success — he strengthened Saudi Arabia’s alliance with the United States, acquiring $110 billion dollars in U.S weapons used against Houthi Rebels in Yemen, creating the greatest current humanitarian crisis in the world while consolidating regional influence over Iran. To prevent further emboldening Salman’s Saudi Arabia, it’s crucial that the myth of the “modernizing monarch” is recognized for what it is — autocratic.