https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4151-007X
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Abstract
How was the Saudi monarchy able to stave off the Arab Spring? One answer to this question lies in migration politics, which are integral to the regime’s ad hoc survival strategies. An analysis of migration politics, moreover, brings to light longstanding dynamics of state transformation in what remains one of the largest immigration countries in the world. Drawing on discourse analysis, institutional history, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in state bureaucracies, I explore the critical, albeit under-researched, role of migration politics in political change from the 1991 Gulf crisis to the 2011 uprisings. First, I show that, in times of crisis, Saudi monarchs made migration a central political issue: while maintaining mass immigration into the country, they used immigrants as scapegoats to deflect popular grievances and further individual power-seeking agendas. Secondly, I demonstrate that migration became a policy domain with its own rules, bureaucratic practices, power relations and rationalities – a process designed to impose a state monopoly over migration control. Thirdly, I introduce the notion of ‘migration rent’ and use it to describe the changing social and power relations between migrants, citizens and the state. Finally, I suggest that migration politics are key to understanding both short- and long-term political change.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1948325 .
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Katharina Natter for helpful comments on the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. She also thanks Erin Chung, Nicholas van Hear, Oliver Bakewell, Leo Lucassen, Delphine Pagès-El Karoui, Dhana Hamal and all seminar participants at COMPAS (Oxford, 5 March 2015), the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam, 5 February 2019), and the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University (11 March 2021).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The term ‘contract’ can only be understood metaphorically here, as noted by Toby Jones (Citation2003). The term refers not to an actual contractual engagement between the monarch and the citizen but rather to a fictional narrative that establishes the political legitimacy of the sovereign state over the people.
2 In rentier states, ruling elites are often considered to uphold joint authority over economic and political spheres and use redistributive (welfare) policies, kinship solidarity and occasional repression to control civil society (Al-Naqeeb Citation1990; Ayubi Citation1996; Beblawi 1987).
3 Sources: Economic Intelligence unit 2019 report, available at www.eiu.com; and Freedom House 2020 report available at https://freedomhouse.org/country/saudi-arabia/freedom-world/2020
4 Politicisation usually refers to ‘an increase in salience and diversity of opinions on specific societal topics’ (De Wilde Citation2011, 561). Although mostly studied in democratic contexts as a way to pressure the policymaking process (through partisan politics, public opinion, free media, etc.), it can also serve non-democratic ones to measure politicisation: salience, polarisation of opinion, participation of actors and audiences. The process can be either top-down (state-led politicisation within policy domains, public organisations and state apparels) or bottom-up (social movements’ activism and political socialisation within civil society and by non-state actors and institutions).
5 The search included several migration keywords, excluding overly general terms and restricting the search to domestic news and pieces: ‘uamala (al-)ajnabiya (عمالة الأجنبية), ‘umala al-wafida (عمالة الوافدة), mughtaribin (مغتربين), ‘umala al-aljanib (عمال الأجانب), muhajirin (مهاجرين), ajanib (أجانبة). The search was conducted in the main general press titles and the Saudi News Agency in Arabic since 2010 available through FACTIVA, which provides information on headlines and article contents. Sources: Aleqtisadiyah (2011–2020); Asharq Alawsat (2011–2020); Saudi Press Agency (2011–2020) MBC Arabic (2011–2020). Sources in Arabic were mostly available only from 2011, onwards and two sources were added (Al Madina (2016–2020); Al Riyadh (2015–2020)) with little effect on the yearly distribution.
6 Legal constraints concern both establishments and contents. They feature in the 1992 Basic Law and were reinforced with the 2003 Printing and Publication Law, the 2005 reform imposing control of the Ministry of Culture and Information over media outlets, and the 2009, 2011 and 2014 laws extending control over the press under the pretext of terrorism prevention. Regular media closures, jailing and condemnation, and even assassination of bloggers, journalists and public figures for their press statements enforce self-censorship as much as ex post control does.
7 Decree 30, 1/3/1415, 8 August 1994, Council of Ministers, ‘Regulation to Remedy the Situation of Foreigners in an Irregular or Provisional Situation in the Kingdom’, translated from Arabic.
8 Decree 90, 14/5/1418, 17 September 1997, Council of Ministers, ‘Law Draft’. Secretary General of the Council of Ministers (diwan ra’issa majlis al wizâra), translated from Arabic.
9 Text available on the website of the former ‘Saudi Institute’ (now Gulf Institute) in Washington DC. See https://al-bab.com/documents/saudi-national-reform-document
10 Nitaqat, literally ‘zone’ in Arabic, classifies private business of more than nine employees with regard to the rate of Saudi employees in a business, penalising ‘Red or Yellow’ firms that have less than 11% Saudi workers by restricting their ability to apply for or extend work visas from the Ministry of Labour.
11 Taqat is at the same time an electronic platform operated by the HRDF that facilitates employment and training services for Saudi workers and is also embodied in local training centres across cities in the country. See https://hrdf.org.sa/Program/394/TAQAT_The_National_Labor_Gateway?bc=266
12 We understand discipline here as a management technique designed to orient the actions and rationalities of agents, which includes information (data), control, surveillance, organisation and sanction exerted on individuals or groups. Discipline is often coupled with but distinct from techniques of control (Foucault Citation2004, 44–50).
13 It administratively ties the legal presence of foreigners on Saudi soil and their access to the labour market to a local sponsor (kafil, plur. kufala’) in exchange for a fee, and establishes a legal bond of dependence, exploitation, protection and hierarchy within and beyond the labour market.
14 Although a work visa is legally tied to a work contract, ‘free (work) visas’ are sold by individuals or companies who declare a fictitious or short-lived activity to bring immigrants into the country regularly. Once arrived, migrants are ‘free’ to find and change jobs, provided that they continue to pay their kafil.
15 Even though the Saudisation only applies to firms with over nine employees, the new regulations weigh heavily upon small businesses, which constitute a large majority of the 17,000 firms classified as Red.
16 See the ‘information’ section of the National Center for Security Operations on the Ministry of Interior website: https://www.moi.gov.sa/
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Hélène Thiollet
Hélène Thiollet is a CNRS Permanent Researcher based at Centre for International Research (CERI) Sciences Po. Her research deals with the politics of migration and asylum in the Global South, and her empirical work focuses on the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. She teaches international relations, comparative politics and migration studies at Sciences Po and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).