Introduction

Despite widespread recognition of the crucial importance of Saudi Arabia in the world today, comparatively little social scientific research has been conducted on the country. A number of factors account for this neglect: statistical data (outside the purely economic) have often proved difficult if not impossible to obtain, official sensitivity to many of the issues which researchers would care to examine has inhibited research activities, and researchers have encountered little success in penetrating the decision-making apparatus. Research on the political system is inevitably difficult where, as the Area Handbook for Saudi Arabia comments, ‘little is publicly known about decision-making within the House of Saud’, despite this being ‘the object of much scrutiny and informed conjecture’. ¹ The problems of conducting research on a country which holds so few parallels with other countries (outside the Arab Gulf area) may also have discouraged potential researchers.