The Role of Foreign Influence on Saudi Arabia’s Undergoing Liberalization and the Areas that It Affects

Abstract

The liberalization of heavily conservative and autocratic nations is a popular issue of concern to the world today. Ever since Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on female drivers, researchers have looked for the connection between Saudi Arabia's transformation and its own political changes, focusing on the change that occurred due to MSB's Vision 2030 plan. There is still a research gap on external causes of the liberalization and the areas in which the liberalization took effect. This study examines the role of foreign pressure and economic modernization in Saudi Arabia's liberalizing process. The research method of this paper is as follows: Saudi Arabia's transformation index will be collected from other scholars' studies and a correlative analysis between the index and the causes of Saudi Arabia's transformation will be made. Afterward, it is found that foreign influence on Saudi Arabia's liberalizing transformation far outweighs the role of its national political change. The area of liberalization is mostly economics, then society, and least politics. The result indicates that the same strategy of liberalization could be applied in other autocratic nations when countries apply diplomatic pressure, which could better warrant against the violation of human rights and bring forth economic modernization on a global scale.