Centre-Periphery Relations in Saudi Arabia: The Case of the Eastern Province Historically speaking, the relations between the central Najd region and the regions at the periphery of Saudi Arabia have been tense. The Eastern Province has been of particular concern, mainly due to the presence of the oil industry and a large Shia minority. Since 1913 and particularly since the influx of oil revenues, the Saudi state apparatus has become increasingly centralized and organized along regionalist and sectarian lines. This means that decision-making was either located with the Emir of the Eastern Province or in the central administration in Riyadh, while top posts in the local administration often went to Najdis. The Shia in particular did hardly receive high-ranking posts and their areas were sidelined through the development of the new oil and administrative towns of Khobar, Dammam and Dhahran. They were, however, recruited by ARAMCO and many were mobilized by leftist groups since the 1950s and Islamists since the 1970s. Some of these groups have voiced separatist demands and worked towards the creation of regionalist and sectarian collective identities, partially through the propagation of regionalist historical narratives. In this context, local development and regional administration have become highly contentious issues and concepts such as 'local government' or 'de-centralisation' are frowned upon in Riyadh. In recent years, however, some steps towards more local input have been taken, for example through the election of local municipal councils in 2004/5. Residents of the Eastern Province enthusiastically participated in these elections, although the actual powers of the councils are limited. Another major problem of centre-periphery relations in Saudi Arabia is the dichotomy between the formal state institutions and the semi-formal 'shadow state'. For example, many local administrative issues are formally decided by the Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) in Riyadh, while other decisions are made by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Finance or the Emir's office in the Eastern Province. Contrary to residents of Najd or the Hijaz, or tribally organized residents of other regions, the largely non-tribal Shia of the Eastern Province lack integration into the Saudi shadow state and therefore into parts of the Saudi political economy. Based on fieldwork carried out in Riyadh and the Eastern Province, this paper discusses the impact of these local tensions in the Eastern region for the general questions of center-periphery relations and de-centralisation in Saudi Arabia as a whole.