SAUDI-IRAN RIVALRY AND ITS IMPACT ON REGIONAL POLITICS

Historically, Iran has dominated the regional politics in several aspects, but after the Second World War, Saudi Arabia emerged as a significant player in regional politics. Both states have several differences; Saudi Arabia is Sunni dominated state with monarchical system of governance while Iran has a Shia dominated population and Islamic republic nature of governance. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been in a conflict with each other for several decades and there have been a number of issues that have intensified the Saudi-Iran rivalry for the several decades and created instability in the region. Iranian nuclear programme and capital punishment of Shia cleric by Saudi government have also further increased their rivalry. But, their recent enmity has had a drastic impact on the West Asian region. Therefore, regional conflicts have been becoming very complex and affecting the regional politics as well as international politics. The main aim of this paper is to examine the causes of Saudi-Iran rivalry and how does it impact on regional politics.   Article visualizations

How Much Change? The Saudi Arabia of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman

Since his father came to power in 2015, Muhammad bin Salman has been the driving force in Saudi Arabian politics. How much has the Crown Prince changed Saudi Arabia, and how much can he change it? F. Gregory Gause OOO is the John H. Lindsey \u2744 Chair, Professor of International Affairs and Head of the International Affairs Department at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/croft_spe/1004/thumbnail.jp

Roles of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Toward the Development of Knowledge and Ulama

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest Islamic countries lies in Arabian Peninsula. The government bases its legitimacy on its interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law) and the 1992 Basic Law. The Basic Law sets out the system of governance, rights of citizens, and powers and duties of the government. The law also provides that the Qur'an and the Traditions (Sunna) of the Prophet Muhammad serve as the country's constitution.  As an Islamic country which is rich in culture and natural resources, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plays prominent influence in Islamic world for various aspects in politics, culture, economics, trading and education. The contribution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can be clearly seen in education sector, particularly in Al-Quran and Sunnah studies. The country provides a wide opportunity and great facilitation for those who wants to study in Saudi Arabia in their own country. The founding of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Science (LIPIA) in Indonesia as an important affiliation of Al Imaam University is regarded as real concern of Saudi Arabia in Islamic studies development. Further, pursuant to history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ulama plays respected crucial roles in the government. They are not merely respected for the high and exclusive knowledge in religion, but they are also regarded having capability in balancing the stability of the country. It implies that the government and ulama mutually work to protect the glory of Islam and the Kingdo

The Politics of Religion: Women, Islam and Politics in Saudi Arabia

In this essay I focus on women in Saudi Arabia, who live in perhaps one of the most socially conservative countries when it comes to women’s rights. For example, Nimrod Raphaeli describes the daily lives of Saudi women in the following way, “women can not work without the permission of a responsible man in the family, cannot drive a car, and cannot go to a restaurant alone,” he goes on to descried how these rules are enforced by the “Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue Police,” commonly referred to as the “religious police” (Raphaeli 2005, 526). Nevertheless, in the following paragraphs I demonstrate that women have found a way to navigate a religious and political climate that attempts to control most aspects of their daily life; and now with a growing push for social reform women in Saudi Arabia have begun to fight back against the religious, political, and social norms that limit them and reclaim both politics and Islam for themselves. I content that despite the existing assumptions and evidences that in Saudi Arabia women’s rights are circumscribed, Saudi Arabian women actively challenge these existing gender inequities, and are engaged in reclaiming their identity and defining their own lives on their own terms

Religious and Political Authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Alfred Stepan’s “twin-tolerations” thesis (2000) is a model for explaining different ways that religious and political authority come to be reconciled. In this paper, we investigate some obstacles and challenges to realizing a reconciliation between religious and political authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) that might result in a transition away from a theocratic monarchy to a more consultative form of political authority. Whereas most analyses of religion and politics in KSA focus on geopolitics, the rentier state model, or economic and military aid from the United States, we also consider local factors that emphasize the agency of political and non-political actors within KSA, focusing in particular on education policy and how this policy is a barrier to political reform. Our position is not meant to replace the standard models, but rather to supplement them by offering a multi-variable perspective on the challenges and prospects for meaningful political reform in KSA

The emerging interventionists of the GCC

There is a shift occurring within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which new regional leaders are emerging, buoyed by a decade of unprecedented wealth generation from the 2000s commodities boom and increased foreign investment. Specifically, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have emerged as activist states in their interest and willingness to intervene both militarily and financially in the politics of neighbouring Arab states. Contrary to their collective and individual foreign policies of the last 40 years, the GCC states have intervened in each other’s domestic politics and in the domestic politics and revolutions of the wider Middle East and North Africa region. While Saudi Arabia enjoyed a period of dominance among its Gulf Arab neighbours for many years, even occasionally threatening the borders of Qatar and the UAE, the prevailing policy of Gulf states has been non-interference and support for Arab leaders, as a principle of religion and politics. In essence, the evolving nature of interventionism in the GCC is moving away from Saudi dominance towards the emergence of new actors willing to engage in the region and on the international stage. We can trace this policy shift through the simultaneous yet separate evolution of domestic, regional and international political economy. This paper argues that shifts in leadership at the national levels have coincided with larger trends in the regional and international economy which have enabled different, yet both assertive, interventionist foreign policies to emerge from Qatar and the UAE. The result is a moment of financial and military interventionism unprecedented in Arab Gulf politics

THE REPRESENTATION OF IRAN-SAUDI CONFLICT IN THE NEWSPAPERS REGARDING MINA HAJJ STAMPEDE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE ARAB NEWS AND THE TEHRAN TIMES

The Hajj 2015 shows a significance flashpoint of the long-term history of tension between Tehran (Iran) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) regarding the Hajj: Iran and Saudi Arabiaexchanged the accusation of standing behind the tragedy of Hajj stampede in Minna SaudiArabia, 2015. Printed media is the crucial for ideology production; this study focuses on therepresentation of the Iran-Saudi conflict on Hajj stampede 2015 in two newspapers, namely theArab News and the Tehran Times newspapers. The study uses a critical discourse analysis,mainly macrostructures analysis by Van Dijk (1980 & 1983). Three texts have been chosenfrom each newspaper and the macro-rules (selection, deletion, generalization, andconstruction) have been used to decrease the information in the micro-level yielding macropropositions in the macro-level; the global topics/themes of the discourse. Ten macrostructuresin the second level of analysis were identified from the Arab News newspaper out of 30 macropropositions in the first level and 21 macrostructures in the second level of analysis out of 43 inthe first level of analysis from the Tehran Times newspaper. The results showed that the Tehran Times newspaper has represented Saudi Arabia more negatively by 66.7% than the Arab Newswhich represented Iran negatively by 50% of the total texts. This indicates the ideologicalsignificance boundary between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ in both newspapers. In addition, the resultsshowed that there is an Islamic ideological competition for taking the Islamic leadershipbetween the Shi’a ideology of Iran and the Sunni Wahabi of Saudi Arabia in the Middle Eastand the Arab World. The study suggested that the discourse of Hajj must be separated from thepolitical discourse between Iran and Saudi Arabia because whenever there is a politicaltension there is a Hajj conflict

Canadian Muslim Voting Guide: Federal Election 2019

This guide assigns a grade to each federal political party Leader\u27s response to identified key issues of importance to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally. The criteria used to determine these grades has been based on whether a party leader\u27s particular political standpoints and/or policy initiatives are positive or detrimental to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally

Two-level negotiations in a fragmented system: Saudi Arabia's WTO accession.

Based on a case study of Saudi Arabia's WTO accession, the article offers a critique of conventional factor- and sector-based models of trade policy, proposing instead a two-level institutional account that is likely to be relevant for non-democratic states in general. Historically grown patterns of institutional fragmentation in both public and private sector in Saudi Arabia have made interest formation and the building of policy coalitions difficult. Various WTO-related economic reforms have therefore been held up as long as they were negotiated within the disjointed Saudi system. However, as soon as the Saudi leadership decided to directly follow the reform demands of its international negotiation partners, changes were rammed through rapidly - as institutional fragmentation of interests prevented an encompassing veto coalition against a comprehensive policy package which was in its substance imposed from outside. Fragmentation of state, business and relations between them can hence mean policy stalemate, but can also make for rapid policy adjustment under conditions of external pressure. In its conclusion, the article relates these findings to the institutionalist literature on trade in general.

Towards a Theory of 'Late Rentierism' in the Arab States of the Gulf

Rentier state theory (RST) gained currency in the late 1980s, and remains widely cited or accepted, as an explanation for the lack of democratization and for economic problems in oil- and gasproducing states of the Middle East. It postulates that externally-derived, unproductively-derived 'rents' such as oil and gas revenues (or fees, foreign aid, and the like) give the state autonomy from society, removing pressures for democratization, economic liberalization, and other policies in response to societal antagonism or pressure. Societal pressures are 'bought off' by rents, and rents also pay the cost of an expansive state repressive capacity. This argument is, of course, simplistic, and the development strategies of the Gulf in the past two decades - including the spectacular globalized development of Dubai and, more recently, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and others - suggests that a simple argument of state autonomy from society is inaccurate or incomplete, and that RST requires refinement and sophisticatization. The paper is a preliminary attempt at that refinement, specifically arguing that while rents allow allocative states to restrict or even avoid pressure for democratization, the state still relies - as all do - on a base level of legitimacy and societal toleration of the regime. Thus, rentiers must still be politically responsive, yet not democratic, to a core set of societal needs and values. The state must balance repression and cooptation - a rentier does not have unlimited repressive ability, whatever its financial capacity - and especially, if it is to survive, a rentier state must be adaptable to the changes brought by globalization and must provide opportunity and employment through economic diversification. Yet the rentier state is relieved of democratic accountability, while never truly autonomous from society, and thus still has a non-democratic or quasi-democratic accountability attached to the rentier bargain. The paper that follows makes this case, and argues for the concept of a 'late-stage rentier state' in the case of the Arab states of the Gulf. The paper begins by outlining the tenets and constraints of orthodox RST, and then makes the case for a more sophisticated understanding of these states' rent-based relationships with society, and highlights their main characteristics in the Gulf from the 1990s to today