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Overstating the Hegemony: Approaching Contradictions in the Saudi Bureaucracy
Abstract
The central question this paper is studying is why the Saudi state bureaucracy under Vision 2030 is inflating? is the Vision a neoliberal blueprint strengthing the private vis-a-vie public sector? And is the neoliberal framework helpful in understanding Vision 2030 policies? A new trend in which the Saudi state is moving toward a neoliberal governance structure aiming to open the private sector and minimize government presence in the market. In the Saudi case, an important divergence is noticed: the state utilized private sector instruments to stimulate the market instead of opening the private sector. Various government-owned companies, public entities, and authorities emerged, extending the Saudi public sector's size. Paradoxically, the state is heading against its managerial template to decentralize governance structure. What is the rationale behind such observation? I argue that contrary to Vision's goal, Saudi bureaucracy is expanding, absorbing, and reproducing a new managerial class of youth technocrats functioning as a depoliticization mechanism, creating a subservient class loyal to the new leadership. The economic policies at the local, national and global levels perform as a political instrument to harness and reproducing entrepreneurial yet cosmopolitan citizens aligning with the Vision state-building project. The paper's aim is two-folded: to fill the gap in state capitalism and neoliberalism under authoritarian literature in MENA and connect the dots that the neoliberal framework fails to tackle in the context of economic transformation for the authoritarian states. Through shedding light on the literature analyzing Saudi state structure, scaling measurement, and institutional approaches to the state structure are limited. The division between private and public in the Saudi context seems blurry. I will rely on Greaber's work on bureaucracy and the Gramscian conceptualization of hegemony to explain the material and ideological dimensions of Saudi bureaucracy's araising role in citizens' depoliticization. I do not argue that Saudi Arabia is a unique case. Instead, I express the need to make sense of Saudi economic transformation in a new global context to advance our understanding of state-society relations' changing functions when the authoritarian state capitalism developmental model has lost ground.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Saudi Arabia
Sub Area
Political Economy