Mourners gather around the grave of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah at the al-Oud cemetery in Riyadh on Friday following his death in the early hours of the morning. Foreign leaders gathered in the Saudi capital for the funeral of the ruler of the world’s top oil exporter and the spiritual home of Islam.MOHAMMED MASHHUR/AFP / Getty Images
When the wheels of Saudi Arabian monarchy began turning this week to install a new ruler after the death of King Abdullah, the most significant announcement was not who was the successor, but who was named deputy crown prince.
For the first time in the country's history, a grandson of the nation's founder has been designated as a possible heir to the throne. The rise of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, 55, a Western-educated member of the Royal Family, begins a significant shift in a country long dominated by unchanging political traditions.
"He's the first one from the second generation to step forward," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs. "He was educated in the West, he is pro-Western, he was in Washington in December, and it was very clear he was treated like a royal. The power structure in Saudi Arabia is going to be Mohammed bin Nayef."
Saudi Arabia's first transfer of power in a decade comes at a time when one of the world's most powerful kingdoms is facing a confluence of potentially existential threats – plunging oil revenues, widespread regional instability and its own demographics. It is these problems that a new generation of Saudi rulers will have to address.
In many ways, Saudi Arabia's leadership is much more monolithic than the country's general makeup. More than half the population is under the age of 25 – a demographic largely underrepresented in the power base (the last two kings were about 80 years old when they took power). About 10-million of the country's 29-million people are foreign born, many of them labourers from southeast Asia or poorer Arab countries. And while an extremely conservative form of Sunni Islam dominates the ranks of Saudi power, the country is home to myriad other sects, including a Shia minority.
To prevent fracturing along demographic or religious lines, the Saudi royal family has long employed a policy of state-enforced religious conservatism. Punishment for dissent is severe – last May, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1,000 lashes. The punishment was started this month, but halted amid mounting international pressure.
But the Saudi government has also maintained control through lavish domestic spending and welfare programs.
"Saudi power has always been chequebook power," said James Gelvin, a professor of history at UCLA and an expert on modern Middle East affairs.
But the commodity behind modern Saudi Arabia's chequebook power is in danger. New sources of fossil fuels around the world and the rising North American oil industry have forced it to act partly against its own interests by reducing oil prices to prevent competitors from being profitable.
"They're in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation," says Prof. Gelvin. "As oil prices go down, the revenue to the kingdom goes down. As oil prices go up, their share of the market goes down."
Falling oil revenue also exacerbates the kingdom's third major challenge – instability throughout the Middle East. Relatively untroubled by the upheaval of the Arab Spring, Riyadh has nonetheless spent billions helping neuter such revolutions within the borders of its neighbours. Chiefly, the Saudi power-brokers' main target has been the growing Islamist political movement perhaps best exemplified by the brief but sudden rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the two years immediately after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. On the other end of the diplomatic spectrum, Saudi rulers found themselves in a bitter and only recently eased political spat with next-door neighbour Qatar about that country's perceived support for the Brotherhood.
For Saudi Arabia's ruling class, the fight against all but its own form of Islamism – from purely political to outright terrorist groups – is pivotal. The country plays a central role in all things Islamic (part of the King's official title is "custodian of the two holy mosques," a reference to the sites in Mecca and Medina that are considered Islam's most sacred places). And it has often relied on this power to present itself as a country run in accordance with Islamic tradition.
Several groups are challenging that narrative – from opposition figures who claim the monarchy is essentially a cabal with an iron fist to organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, which have long condemned the Saudi royals as apostates for perceived transgressions such as allowing the U.S. military on Saudi Arabian soil.
The triple threat of unstable demographics, falling oil revenue and growing regional tension now faces Saudi Arabia's new generation of rulers. It is a generation best exemplified by Deputy Crown Prince bin Nayef. It is also a generation of vastly different upbringing.
In almost every way, Prince bin Nayef is far more in tune with the West than any of the men who have occupied the throne. He was educated in the United States, earning a degree in political science. He then had security training with the FBI and Scotland Yard. He is seen by many in Washington as a staunch ally in the fight against al-Qaeda, Islamic State and similar groups. On a recent trip, he visited the White House and was greeted by the President, the Vice-President and the national security adviser, among other senior members of the Obama administration.
He also has a personal motivation for fighting regional terrorist groups. In 2009, he escaped an assassination attempt – a suicide bombing believed to have been the work of an al-Qaeda affiliate.
Some critics say Prince bin Nayef's approach to terrorism crosses over to general suppression of dissent. "Looking at his record since he was made deputy interior minister and then interior minister, he has been brutal," Mr. al-Ahmed said. Under his rule, he added, "I expect there to be more of a police state."
Few observers expect radical political changes in Saudi Arabia. Religious conservatism severely limits the extent to which rulers can enact anything resembling significant social reform. To cement its power, the royal family has filled the apparatus of government with supporters, primarily from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia – the birthplace of the deeply conservative Wahhabi brand of Islam.
"There is no sudden departure on policies or introduction of radical changes," says Hani Faris, a professor and Middle East expert at the University of British Columbia. "The monarchs of Saudi Arabia realize that they are constrained by a highly conservative society with traditional institutions and traditional religious values, so their area of manoeuvrability is limited."
However, Prof. Faris adds that each Saudi king has traditionally made at least nominal progressive changes. For example, he said, as a gesture to the West, the new Saudi leaders may slightly ease driving restrictions for women.
And bringing grandsons of the country's founder, many of them Western-educated, into the succession raises the possibility that progressive changes may take on a slightly faster pace.
"The new prospective monarchs promise to be more educated and perhaps more sophisticated and more capable of modernizing Saudi society than their fathers," Prof. Faris says.
"But keep one thing in mind. When [the new king] Salman bin Abdulaziz was asked what he would do if the regime is challenged, his reply was: We took power by the sword, and by the sword we will continue to govern."
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Family Dynasty
King Ibn Saud
1932-1953
Died at age 76
King Saud
1953-1964
Died at age 67
King Faisal
1964-1975
Died at age 68
King Khalid
1975-1982
Died at age 69
King Fahd
1982-2005
Died at age 84
King Abdullah
2005-2015
Died at age 90
King Salman
2015-
Age: 79
Crown Prince Muqrin
Next in line
Age: 69
Deputy Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Nayef
Second in line
Age: 55