Elite In The Political Transformation Of The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia To Study

"Elite" is a traditionally political and sociological concept, which has been frequently used as key element by many western scholars in their researches on the process of political evolvement of some countries. In general, the "Elite classes" are celebrities from political and business circles, which have the social power and can directly or indirectly affect national policies.This thesis attempts to investigate the elite classes in the political transitions of Saudi Arabia.The introduction section will explain the concept and the partition of the political elites as well as relations of the elites with political systems. The layer module with three concentric rings is designed to analysis the influence of the different elite classes to politics. Some issues related to the elite will also be discussed.The first chapter will elaborated on the political transitions of Saudi Arabia. We concluded that the political reforms in Saudi Arabia are affected by tradition and modernity simultaneously. The political reforms are occurred from above to below and in the frame of Monarchy, Islamic law and Family rule. The elite class is appeared in the political reforms.In the second chapter, the elite classes in Saudi Arabia are divided into two categories according to the development of petroleum industry. Before the flourish of the petroleum industry, the traditional political elites are mainly composed of the royal family, the religious elite and the tribal elite. After 1950s, the new elite classes which mainly composed of business elite, technocrats and Islamist reformers are appeared.In the third chapter, the relations of Saudi Arabia political transforms with the political elites are discussed. The evolution of the elite classes in the process of modernization and democratization of Saudi Arabia is discussed. We also analyzed the function of the elite classes in the slowly political reforms in Saudi Arabia.In the last chapter, firstly, the factors that influence the changes of the elite classes are explained as well as structures, characters and interactions of the different elite classes. Secondly, the current status and the developmental trend of the elite classes are analyzed. Hopefully it will leads to some predictions on the development of the elites and society of Saudi Arabia.