Violence and Political Change in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Few societies are more identified with Islamist armed violence than Saudi Arabia—country of origin of Usama bin Laden and 15 of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as more than a thousand insurgents in Iraq, and itself the site of attacks on expatriate housing compounds. The author draws on discussions with Saudi activists and intellectuals to reflect on ambivalent public and elite attitudes toward this violence. The author’s interlocutors attribute this “neutrality” to the accommodating relationship between a repressive state and an intolerant religious establishment, and argue that only a vibrant civil society can combat such violence.