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Reform in Saudi Arabia: Movement or Mirage?

870 views · Published 9 October 2009 · 1:18:37 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Brown University · 2009 · Education

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Courtesy of the Watson Institute for International Studies.
http://www.watsoninstitute.org

"Reform in Saudi Arabia: Movement or Mirage?," with Karen Elliott House,  former senior vice president of Dow Jones & Company and former publisher of all print editions of The Wall Street Journal, and Watson Institute Overseer.

King Abdullah, who just turned up #4 on a global list of "worst dictators" doesn't deserve that billing. But how real is the reform image he seeks to cultivate since assuming the throne in 2005? True the kingdom has held municipal elections and King Abdullah favors more freedom for women. But with US pressure for more liberalization now gone, reform is becoming more rhetoric than reality. Politics is limited to the ruling family and the religious establishment is given sway over social change. So women remain the battleground between religious conservatives and modernizers: One woman is thrown in prison for coffee with a male colleague at Starbucks. Is reform success in America's interest? 

Karen Elliott House had been president of Dow Jones' international group since January 1995 before being appointed publisher in July 2002. In 1974, she joined the Journal's Washington, D.C. bureau as a journalist, where she covered energy, environment, and agriculture. She was named diplomatic correspondent in 1978, moved to New York in 1983 as assistant foreign editor, and became foreign editor in 1984. House won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1984 for her coverage of the Middle East. In March 1989, she was named vice president of Dow Jones' international group.

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