The Heirs to the Saudi Throne: Emir Faisal and Emir Muhammad

Abstract

This article compares the experience of two heirs to the Saudi throne – Emir Faisal who became the king in 1964 and Emir Muhammad, current heir to the throne. Both heirs found themselves on the way to supreme power during periods of a crisis in the kingdom. The first of these crises back in the beginning of the 1960s challenged the prospects of the existence of the kingdom, the second one, in 2010s weakened the internal potential of the society and the state. In both cases their actions demonstrated the crucial role of the royal family in the political life of the kingdom. Both heirs found themselves assigned to one task: modernization of the country amidst the crisis of existing socioeconomic and political system aimed at making a transition to a stable state of affairs. This article studies the key parameters of steps taken by Emir Faisal and Emir Muhammad, outlines the main similarities of the frameworks within which they worked (socioeconomic crisis, strong dependence of country’s development on hydrocarbons), as well as the common features of their personalities (high level of education, knowledge and competence), reliance on internal (the father and a part of the royal family) and external forces (the US Administration, big Western monopolies). It also underlines the similarities of their actions on their way to the throne (rigidity and authoritarianism in decision-making, search for and consolidation of social support, policy of compromise towards different social forces, use of the experience of the predecessors). At the same time, with both emirs obviously relying on the principle of etatism/statism in domestic politics, during a half a century period of radical modernization the nature of power in the kingdom has changed. So, Emir Muhammad can no longer use those methods of absolutist ruler which were used by Emir Faisal. Both heirs faced conflicts and contradictions specific to certain time and tried to overcome them. Despite significant differences in the internal and external environments during the periods of the mid-20thcentury and the first decades of the 21st century, in the steps taken by the two heirs we can see attempts of using the Western model of industrial society as the goal of development and at the same time – willingness of using to greater or lesser extent the foundations of traditional Arabian society and to remain loyal to the ideas of the Arab unity and assert the regional leadership of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. As a result, the breakthrough in social development made by the two heirs in both cases did not become a revolutionary break with previous experience, although it interrupted the linear continuity of development.