Modernizing without Democratizing? The Introduction of Formal Politics in Saudi Arabia STEFFEN HERTOG Introduction Saudi Arabia is often treated as an exception by both political scientists and regional specialists. This is true in many regards, but both groups seem to have overlooked the fact that the nature of the Kingdom as an »outlier« makes the testing and comparison of broader hypotheses in comparative politics all the more rewarding. This is especially the case with recent institutional changes in the political field which partially fit patterns witnessed in many other authoritarian countries, but are at the same time situated in a specific Saudi context of skewed state–society re­lations and rentierism. The Thesis Saudi Arabia has seen a modest but discernible measure of political»lib­eralization« since at least 2003. New spaces for debate have been opened up, and a number of new»interest groups« have come into being, dealing with social and political issues considered taboo just a few years before. Elections have been held in various associations and at the municipal level. The Kingdom seems to have departed from the old model of Saudi politics which was characterized by an omnipresent bureaucracy and a formally fragmented society. This essay cannot examine in detail all areas of institutional develop­ment in the Saudi polity. It will focus mainly on changes in economic policy-making and the related shifts of resources and negotiation patterns – the area which has seen the most significant changes by far when it comes to the real influence of societal groups. 1 Despite the focus 1. For a detailed discussion of the Saudi corporatist record, cf. S. Hertog,»The new corporatism in Saudi Arabia: limits of formal politics,« in G. Luciani and A. Khalaf (eds), Constitutional Reforms and Political Participation in the Gulf (Dubai, 2006). ipg 3/2006 Hertog, Saudi Arabia 65