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E-book
Author Hertog, Steffen

Title Princes, brokers, and bureaucrats : oil and the state in Saudi Arabia / Steffen Hertog
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2010

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 297 pages) : illustrations
Contents Unpacking the Saudi state : oil fiefdoms and their clients -- Oil fiefdoms in flux : the new Saudi state in the 1950s -- The emerging bureaucratic order under Faisal -- The 1970s boom : bloating the state and clientelizing society -- The Foreign Investment Act : lost between fiefdoms -- Eluding the "Saudization" of labor markets -- The fragmented domestic negotiations over WTO adaptation -- Comparing the case studies, comparing Saudi Arabia
Summary In Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats, the most thorough treatment of the political economy of Saudi Arabia to date, Steffen Hertog uncovers an untold history of how the elite rivalries and whims of half a century ago have shaped today's Saudi state and are reflected in its policies. Starting in the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious reform campaign to remedy its long-term economic stagnation. The results have been puzzling for both area specialists and political economists: Saudi institutions have not failed across the board, as theorists of the "rentier state" would predict, nor have they achieved the all-encompassing modernization the regime has touted. Instead, the kingdom has witnessed a bewildering mélange of thorough failures and surprising successes. Hertog argues that it is traits peculiar to the Saudi state that make sense of its uneven capacities. Oil rents since World War II have shaped Saudi state institutions in ways that are far from uniform. Oil money has given regime elites unusual leeway for various institutional experiments in different parts of the state: in some cases creating massive rent-seeking networks deeply interwoven with local society; in others large but passive bureaucracies; in yet others insulated islands of remarkable efficiency. This process has fragmented the Saudi state into an uncoordinated set of vertically divided fiefdoms. Case studies of foreign investment reform, labor market nationalization and WTO accession reveal how this oil-funded apparatus enables swift and successful policy-making in some policy areas, but produces coordination and regulation failures in others
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Print version record
In Title is part of the collection: De Gruyter Rights, Action, and Social Responsibility
Subject Petroleum industry and trade -- Government policy -- Saudi Arabia
Economic development -- Political aspects -- Saudi Arabia
Bureaucracy -- Saudi Arabia
Patron and client -- Saudi Arabia
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Economic Policy.
Bureaucracy
Economic development -- Political aspects
Economic policy
Patron and client
Petroleum industry and trade -- Government policy
Politics and government
SUBJECT Saudi Arabia -- Economic policy
Saudi Arabia -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2004003457
Subject Saudi Arabia
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780801458774
0801458773