The Pandemic Was a Global Exam, and Our Country Came in First
Autocratic Performance Legitimacy in Saudi Arabia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6324474 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bruno Schmidt-Feuerheerd (0009-0001-4163-9973, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 736-752 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives on Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1537592723002876 |
| OpenAlex | W4388909461 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 37 |
Existing scholarship establishes that authoritarian regimes make claims about their legitimacy yet does not tell us what makes these claims effective. This article argues that authoritarian legitimation is more effective when coproduced by the government, media, and progovernment supporters, rather than just being centrally disseminated talking points. This article uses the effective handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Saudi government to demonstrate how this narration translated trust in state capacity into performance legitimacy of the Saudi regime and system of governance. Saudi media figures and progovernment supporters expanded basic government talking points for audiences and discussed successful policies in relation to countries with higher international status (chiefly in the West) and higher state capacity (such as China). This article evaluates statements by the government, original media sources, and more than 90 interviews with Saudi nationalists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs, while speaking to the relational character of performance legitimation beyond Saudi Arabia
Authoritarianism · Autocracy · Bureaucracy · China · Corporate governance · Democracy · Economics · Legitimacy · Legitimation · Management · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Socioeconomic Development in MENA
Autocracy and Redistribution
Policy Makes Mass Politics
Seek Fact From Texts
Fridays of Rage
Symbols and Legitimacy in Soviet Politics
Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats
Bedouins into Bourgeois
Good governance and Covid‐19
Saudi Arabia plans for its economic future
The autocratic mandate
What the Party Wanted to Know
Performative Governance
Economic Performance and Communist Legitimacy
A Double-Edge Sword? Mass Media and Nonviolent Dissent in Autocracies
Taking Authoritarian Anti-Corruption Reform Seriously
Legitimacy in Autocracies
On the Outside Looking In
Formal Models of Authoritarian Regimes
Claiming the right to rule
Claims to legitimacy count
The effect of Covid‐19 lockdowns on political support
Using civil society as an authoritarian legitimation strategy
Social services to claim legitimacy
What autocracies say (and what citizens hear)
The relevance of legitimation – a new framework for analysis
The empire strikes back
Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science
Pandemic backsliding
Social Policy and Regime Legitimacy
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |