For example, in Saudi Arabia, where unrest was catalyzed by the self-immolation of an elderly man due to poor living conditions, people protested economic hardship, anti-Shia discrimination, and the constrained political scene.
The most significant unrest occurred in the oil-producing, Shia-populated Eastern Province whose residents repeatedly took to the streets because of marginalization, inequality, and repression. In economically vulnerable monarchies like Jordan, Morocco, and Oman, unrest was triggered by high unemployment rates, planned subsidy reforms, and soaring food and fuel prices. Protesters also sought constitutional reforms, better electoral laws, transparent elections, and stronger legislative branches.
The UAE and Qatar experienced very limited unrest. Around Emiratis organized a petition asking for greater political opening through universal suffrage and a more powerful Federal National Council. In fact, Bahrain was the only monarchy where the protest movement called for the abdication of the ruling family. Brutal violence triggered more protests, which led to further repression. This loop eventually intensified, and the Bahraini monarchy requested and obtained military aid from its neighbors to contain the situation.
Most Arab monarchs attempted to contain the uprisings in a broadly similar manner: They granted monetary incentives and limited political concessions, which they combined with repressive tactics that constrained persistent protesters and deterred further contestation.
Of course, depending on regime wealth and type, some offered more concessions or repressed protesters more harshly than others. Indeed, Arab monarchies can be categorized according to their political systems and economic conditions. Broadly, there are the poorest kingdoms — Morocco and Jordan — and the relatively wealthier Gulf monarchies. The latter group can be further divided into three categories: super-rentier states with small populations and high reserves of natural resources Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE , an oil-wealthy kingdom with a significantly larger population Saudi Arabia , and the economically vulnerable Gulf monarchies Oman and Bahrain.
Their political systems range from absolute monarchy to soft dictatorships. Morocco and Jordan fit the latter description; they have both a minimum component of democracy and mechanisms that ensure the ruler remains the most powerful actor.
Although Kuwait and Bahrain have minor openings and developing civil society groups, Gulf monarchies overall have more restrictive political systems compared to Morocco and Jordan. These categorizations help explain how regimes interact with populations and opposition movements. Wealthier monarchies can provide citizens with material perks in a way that poorer monarchies cannot.
During the uprisings, while poorer monarchies like Morocco and Jordan offered modest monetary concessions like delayed austerity measures and increased subsidies, super-rentier states such as the United Arab Emirates could afford multi-billion-dollar development projects. Furthermore, monarchies with strong civil society and political groups face greater or more frequent opposition than absolute monarchies and are less likely to harshly repress them.
This partly explains why security forces in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia killed a massive number of protesters compared to in Morocco and Jordan. Yet, most Arab monarchs contained the uprisings by granting monetary and political concessions as well as repression. It is precisely these types of programs that were lacking in those countries that have witnessed revolution or are now facing unrest.
In addition to its social spending, the kingdom has invested extensively to shore up the defenses of its energy infrastructure, including several billion dollars for its 35,strong Facilities Security Force, and has spent a similar amount on its various armed services to protect its borders.
Finally, the Saudi government has made considerable investments in internal security to root out al Qaeda from the kingdom; domestic safety and stability have been a key pillar of support from the general population. Of course, the kingdom is not immune to economic problems.
Greater efforts at fighting poverty and youth unemployment, as well as investing in infrastructure and public services, are still drastically needed. Nonetheless, there is a widespread acknowledgement that the standard of living is not commensurate with a country as resource rich as Saudi Arabia. For this reason, the leadership has undertaken various economic reforms. The bureaucracy is being streamlined to improve the delivery of health care and other services.
Another initiative will successfully reduce to zero the 1. But because Saudi Arabia is no ordinary country, such numbers are an embarrassment and have been met with large-scale government action.
Although there are some cultural similarities between Saudi Arabia and some of the states that are currently experiencing unrest, the dissimilarities are more important. Not only is it the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed and the home of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, but it is also the largest provider of Muslim charitable contributions worldwide.
And the fact that the Saudi monarchy has acted as a responsible custodian of the two holy sites gives it enormous legitimacy, both at home and abroad. The conservatism of the Saudi population also explains the lack of any true "liberal" movement in the kingdom, with just a few groups that attract little support among the general populace.
In addition, Salafism, the conservative strain of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, forbids opposition to earthly rulers, which is why Islamist reform movements led by radical clerics are also small and fragmented. Five recent petitions by such groups, which organizers hoped would attract millions of signatories, have come nowhere close: only a few thousand have signed.
And so far protests organized on Facebook and other websites have yielded only a handful of individuals: Last Friday, March 4, a group called the "March 4th Youth Revolutionary Movement" brought out 12 demonstrators to a Riyadh mosque, despite inflammatory media coverage in the West of Saudi protest pages on various social networks. Security forces quickly moved to suppress and arrest demonstrators. Shia notables from the province hurried to Riyadh to express their allegiance to the king and to demand the release of political prisoners.
In a gesture meant to calm the situation and demonstrate good will, some prisoners were released. And then on March 11, the day of the planned demonstrations, things were quiet. Helicopters flew low in the skies over Saudi cities, mirroring the intimidation of protesters in Tahrir Square and Pearl Roundabout. Security forces spread through every corner and street. When Shias began protesting, their leaders hurried to Riyadh to express their allegiance to the king.
An unannounced curfew loomed over Riyadh and Jeddah. At noon, Saudis prayed as usual, then they got into their cars to drive home for lunch and the usual siesta. One man dared to defy the curfew. I need freedom; all the country is a jail. We need a parliament. Like Muhammad al-Wadani, he disappeared. Since the aborted Day of Rage, small-scale protests outside government buildings in Riyadh, Jeddah, and the Eastern Province have become daily events.
Protests appear to form spontaneously, aided by the speed of online and cell phone communication. Demonstrators raise cardboard signs demanding employment and the release of political prisoners, many of whom have been held without trial for more than ten years.
The marching women support their Bahraini Shia coreligionists, demand the end of Saudi occupation of Bahrain, and remember young men long disappeared. Women teachers ask for secure jobs.
Protests are becoming common among private sector workers too. Security forces usually turn up, surround protesters, and force them to disperse. But they return another day. Meanwhile, the highest religious authority, Mufti Abd al-Aziz al-Shaikh, tours the country lecturing students about the sinful nature of peaceful protest and the obligation to obey the rulers. Protesters avoid arrest by supporting the king and demanding that bureaucrats respect his royal decrees.
Anger is therefore channelled toward low-level civil servants without challenging the regime directly or insisting on royal intervention. As long as protests do not question the policies of senior members of the royal family, they are tolerated, perhaps to some extent welcomed as a means to vent public anger. Even minor protests are astonishing in a country where trade unions, civil society, and other modes of organization and mobilization are banned. Saudi women have agitated before—in some were arrested for violating a driving ban—but the protests are different.
They want employment, the right to vote in municipal elections, and freedom of speech. But both online and on the street, the regime still has the upper hand. When protesters agitate for the end of the regime, they are shown no mercy. As of this writing, seven demonstrators have been shot and killed by Saudi security forces. In the virtual world, government agents continue to use propaganda, counterarguments, and rumors against calls for protest. While many Saudis expected serious political response to their patience and obedience, they received economic largesse.
Autocrats usually give the population what belongs to them, and this is exactly what King Abdullah did. Tight restrictions were later imposed on 18—35 year olds trying to access those funds. Benefits promised over the next five years include , houses and 60, new jobs in security and military services. The expanded recruiting of soldiers and police and lavishing of rewards on security personnel who policed the protests all seem geared toward militarizing Saudi youth.
In addition to these secular gifts, the king funded new religious centers to spread the Wahhabi message and Hanbali jurisprudence, the predominant school of religious law among Saudi Sunnis. The goals are not solely pious.
And, with more jobs available, the religious bureaucracy will be able to absorb religious graduates who are of no use to modern economies. About two weeks after the failed mass protests, Chas Freeman, former U. He unequivocally asserted that there is no great power other than the United States capable of defending the Gulf.
As a retired diplomat, he does not represent official American views. So far Washington has remained silent on political reform in Saudi Arabia and maintained its special relationship with its most important regional ally. The Bahraini episode, in which the West stood idle as the Saudis overran protesters, demonstrated clearly that the United States, Britain, France, and other Western countries still prefer security to democracy in oil-rich regions.
After Bahrain, there can be no doubt of the hypocrisy of these liberal democracies. For the moment, the Saudi regime has avoided real turbulence. Religious bans on demonstrations, anti-Shia sectarianism, heavy policing, and economic rewards effectively halted the momentum toward mass protest.
Digital activism will continue to provide an outlet to a population denied basic freedom. But with popular unrest largely under wraps and the West silent, the regime faces no threat in the short term.
The economic and social deprivation, political oppression, and corruption that triggered revolutions elsewhere are all present in Saudi Arabia, but these alone are not sufficient to precipitate an uprising.
The municipal council elections raised hopes about improvements to governance in the east. But they too proved a disappointment, with ultimate power over local budgets, administration, and personnel appointments remaining in the hands of the governor of the Eastern Province and the Ministry of Interior.
A February ministerial reshuffle looked promising. It included the ouster of hardline stalwarts from the government, such as Ibrahim bin Abdullah al-Ghaith, the head of the so-called morality police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and Saleh bin Mohammed al-Luhaydan, the head of the Supreme Judicial Council.
The reorganization raised expectations that Shia would gain representation in the Senior Ulema Council and the Supreme Judicial Council, also a high religious body. Yet no Shia were appointed. If there was one bright spot, it was the overseas scholarship program. This program, according to many Shia interlocutors, was administered without regard to sect or region.
Yet even this proved a double-edged sword, as many of the Shia youth who benefited from the program returned to a country that was unable to accommodate their aspirations at precisely the moment when the promise of reform had given way to renewed cynicism and despair. Eventually, mounting frustration with the lack of reform turned into collective rage.
If a single event can pinpoint the shift, it was the February riots in Medina—a revered city among the Shia because it contains the graves of Shia imams. The security forces then moved into the Shia neighborhoods of Medina, beating and arresting residents. Dozens were injured. Demonstrations quickly erupted in al-Qatif, al-Awamiya, and al-Safwa, marking the most serious outbreak of Shia dissent since The Medina riots and the ensuing crackdown sharpened divisions within the Shia community over the pace and scope of reform.
But the most enduring effect of the clashes was to boost the popularity of Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken Shia cleric who also rejected the participatory approach of the Islahiyyin and whose support had previously been confined to his hometown of al-Awamiya. Far from stifling dissent, the arrests sparked widespread calls for solidarity with al-Nimr, ironically bolstering the stature of the Shia figure the regime wished most to marginalize. Activists across the Eastern Province organized sit-ins calling for the release of al-Awamiya protesters.
By late , a younger, more activist cohort of Saudi Shia was increasingly seeing the older cadre of Islahiyyin as having been co-opted by the royal family and having failed to deliver any meaningful improvements.
This younger generation was highly susceptible to the winds of change sweeping the region. Increasingly, disagreements about strategies for reform fell along generational lines. It was a growing divide that would eventually reach its apogee in the wake of the uprisings in Tunis and Cairo. These reformists with a preference for peaceful protest signed a letter to the royal family demanding a constitutional monarchy.
It urged a broad array of political and civil reforms, including the establishment of an elected National Assembly, the protection of human rights, and, importantly, the institution of a federal system that would give greater authority to provincial governments. The latter was especially significant as a grievance that united both Sunnis and Shia.
But for youthful activists in the east, inspired by the crowds of Tunis, Tahrir Square, Benghazi, and the Pearl Roundabout, the petition was emblematic of a timeworn approach that had failed. In early March, disparate youth groups across the country appeared to have coalesced under a cross-sectarian umbrella movement called the Free Youth Coalition.
Tensions quickly emerged within the protest movement over the prioritization of local or national agendas. The Shia in particular began to focus more on demands and reforms specific to discrimination in the Eastern Province rather than overarching national aims like ending corruption and creating a constitution.
The organizers of the Eastern Region Revolution page made clear that their agenda was distinct from the larger Hunayn Revolution. In addition to voicing their own local demands, the Shia scheduled their own protests. The regime responded with the arrest of roughly two dozen protesters, including prominent intellectuals, on the street in al-Qatif.
Several were reportedly injured. On March 6, Saudi authorities released al-Amir along with other detained protesters in an apparent gesture of conciliation. The reaction from other opposition voices was swift. An online commentator named Salma al-Shihab argued that the Eastern Region Revolution page was regionalist and sectarian and pointed out that the organizers themselves were even critical of such divides.
The deployment of Saudi troops in Bahrain has long animated Shia protests in the Eastern Province because there are deep connections between the Shia communities in both countries. In their postmortem reflections on why the protests fizzled, many activists in the east attributed the failure of the demonstrations to attract broad public support to Sunni apathy and the historic aversion of the Najdi heartland to mounting any sort of dissent against the status quo.
For their part, Sunni activists blamed the Shia for starting their protests too soon. In contrast, official media outlets saw the absence of nationwide protests as a validation of the benevolence and legitimacy of the al-Saud family.
In responding to the protests, the Saudi regime applied a template it has long used to manage and contain internal dissent, particularly in the east. But the net effect of these measures did little to address the root causes of dissent. Originally scheduled for October , the elections had been repeatedly postponed, and their sudden acceleration appeared timed to placate the burgeoning protests.
In addition, the government undertook an astonishing expansion of its public sector. By September , more than , Saudi men and women had been hired into public employment in the space of a year—a figure that was roughly equal to public-sector hiring for the entire previous decade.
But unemployment is still high, and al-Awamiya continues to suffer from sectarian discrimination. The Saudi regime also launched a media campaign to discredit and undermine the protests, deploying a wide range of themes. It emphasized the destructive nature of the protests, delegitimized them on the basis of Islamic law, and, importantly, portrayed them as serving the parochial interests of the Shia.
A range of institutions conveyed these messages, using both traditional and social media, including the Ministry of Interior, the Senior Ulema Council, conservative and reformist newspapers, and Facebook pages that emphasized solidarity with the regime.
On March 5, the Ministry of Interior issued a forceful statement reiterating that protests were illegal and that those participating would be subject to prosecution. The regime sponsored—albeit indirectly—the creation of Facebook pages that attempted to discredit and isolate the Day of Rage organizers.
The regime undertook more repressive measures in the realm of traditional and social media as well. In February, it enacted a new law requiring online newspapers to be licensed by the Ministry of Interior.
Activists complained that the law was sufficiently vague to encapsulate many forms of online discourse, such as video and text messaging. A spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Interior also announced in early November that police in the Eastern Province would set up a Facebook presence and assign a special team to monitor social media in the region.
In tandem with this media strategy, the government relied on local interlocutors among the Shia clergy in the east to dampen the protests.
Much of this took place in behind-the-scenes negotiations with the governor of the Eastern Province, Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, and in dialogue with youth. Clerics from across the ideological spectrum took part. The ultimate results of this effort were mixed.
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