Modernising Legitimacy: Saudi Strategies

Saudi Arabia is a state that draws upon a range of impulses. The imagery of Saudi Arabia has long soured the flavour of liberal tastes. The idea of heavily-veiled women, enslaved maids, hostaged migrant workers and vulgar opulence have somehow accompanied images of Arabian nobility, Islamic piety and an ‘oriental’ mastery of the desert. Of course, oil has despoiled most of the noble images of Arabia, once captured by the early explorers, who courted the desert emirs and etched maps into our psyches.