The Modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Introduction The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established by the King Abdulaziz bin Abdelrahman Al-Saud in 1932 (Al-Turaiqi, 2008; Albassam, 2011; BTI, 2012; Hamzawy, 2006; Peterson, 1984; UN, 2004). Saudi is a big country with 13 provinces (mintaqah) and 1,600, 000 km2 (Albassam, 2011; UN, 2004). Saudi has the largest reserves of oil in the world (UN, 2004). The political system in Saudi is Monarchy since the day of Unification of the Kingdom (23 September, 1932) (Al-Turaiqi, 2008; Albassam, 2011; BTI, 2012; Chatham, 2011; Hamzawy, 2006; Matthes, Otto, & Schützhold, 2007; Peterson, 1984; UN, 2004). This profoundly traditional kingdom has “undergone socioeconomic transformation” to the level perhaps no resembling anywhere else in the world (Peterson, 1984). These changes went along with rapid growth and evolution within the political system. Currently, Saudi encounter a lot of pressure to change as a response to Arab spring, the Kingdom is required to occupy youth generations and women and give them the chances to participate in public affairs (Chatham, 2011). In this section, the discussion will focus on the political system, judicial system, economy and administration of Saudi. The main purpose here is to shed light on the administrative structure of the Saudi state. The discussion will focus on how the concept of the state has evolved since 1932 until now, how the ruling regime tried to move Saudi from tribal system to modern state system. Besides that, the discussion will focus on the effort of the royal family to encourage people to take over some administrative responsibilities. The Political System of the State Saudi is an Arab Islamic country and naturally the Constitution of the Kingdom is based on Shari'a (... ... middle of paper ... ...ects that can employ so many Saudis. King Abdullah is willing to open the opportunities for two important sectors (youth and women) in the society to take a part of leadership (Abu-Ali, 2009). • Protect the kingdom’s stability by improving the mechanism for selecting the succession. And establishing many reforms related to the political system. Municipal elections were among the first reforms, those elections wittiness the participation of women (BTI, 2012). It can be there are small political changes in many fields in the kingdom, however those changes take place so slowly due to many reasons such as the availability of royal family members that resist change, the nature of Saudi society that slowly responds to changes (because of tribal structure) (BTI, 2012). • King Abdullah is encouraging for more public participation in the governmental administration.

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