{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/391387"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/391387","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Authoritarian Renewal and Legitimation in Saudi Arabia","abstract":"How do processes of authoritarian legitimation in Saudi Arabia work? Existing political science scholarship on authoritarianism tends to focus on repression and co-optation and ties ideologies and ideational aspects – such as the global rise of nationalist politics under authoritarian rule – exclusively to top-down state strategies. Yet, this emphasis on top-down ruling strategies fails to recognize political agency of populations in authoritarianism. This neglect of pro-government intellectual currents and movements is what I address in my PhD project, using Saudi Arabia as my case study. This thesis investigates how authoritarian nationalism – a political ideology that fuses nationalist mobilization with authoritarian rule and the centralization of political power – is sustained and legitimized from below. I observe this dynamic during processes that I term “authoritarian renewal” which denotes the replacement of cultural elites by the political leadership during an overhaul of politics and society. Empirically, I show that there is a rising nationalism in Saudi Arabia since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in 2015, replacing the old religious sources of legitimacy with Saudi cultural nationalism. But importantly, MBS does not invent these new narratives from scratch but selectively identifies and amplifies nationalist ideas previously produced by Saudi writers. Thus, despite being a revolution from above in nature, authoritarian renewal relies on active grassroots participation from what I term “nationalist cultural entrepreneurs” (NCEs) – intellectuals, journalists, and social media activists. These actors politicize national identity through their intellectual production and activism, simultaneously empowering the regime to craft novel legitimation narratives and defending the regime on Twitter while radicalizing state and society. This project draws on the empirical materials that I collected during 12 months of fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, including around 100 interviews with pro-government nationalists, some 30,000 pages from a cultural magazine that I digitized, and millions of Tweets from the Saudi Twitter sphere. This thesis is the first in-depth academic account of MBS’ Saudi Arabia with implications for the study of authoritarian nationalism around the globe. It challenges the existing literature and conventional wisdom about authoritarian durability by showing how regime legitimation emerges through dynamic interactions between state actors and social forces, rather than through top-down control alone.","abstract_html":"How do processes of authoritarian legitimation in Saudi Arabia work? Existing political science scholarship on authoritarianism tends to focus on repression and co-optation and ties ideologies and ideational aspects – such as the global rise of nationalist politics under authoritarian rule – exclusively to top-down state strategies. Yet, this emphasis on top-down ruling strategies fails to recognize political agency of populations in authoritarianism. This neglect of pro-government intellectual currents and movements is what I address in my PhD project, using Saudi Arabia as my case study. This thesis investigates how authoritarian nationalism – a political ideology that fuses nationalist mobilization with authoritarian rule and the centralization of political power – is sustained and legitimized from below. I observe this dynamic during processes that I term “authoritarian renewal” which denotes the replacement of cultural elites by the political leadership during an overhaul of politics and society. Empirically, I show that there is a rising nationalism in Saudi Arabia since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in 2015, replacing the old religious sources of legitimacy with Saudi cultural nationalism. But importantly, MBS does not invent these new narratives from scratch but selectively identifies and amplifies nationalist ideas previously produced by Saudi writers. Thus, despite being a revolution from above in nature, authoritarian renewal relies on active grassroots participation from what I term “nationalist cultural entrepreneurs” (NCEs) – intellectuals, journalists, and social media activists. These actors politicize national identity through their intellectual production and activism, simultaneously empowering the regime to craft novel legitimation narratives and defending the regime on Twitter while radicalizing state and society. This project draws on the empirical materials that I collected during 12 months of fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, including around 100 interviews with pro-government nationalists, some 30,000 pages from a cultural magazine that I digitized, and millions of Tweets from the Saudi Twitter sphere. This thesis is the first in-depth academic account of MBS’ Saudi Arabia with implications for the study of authoritarian nationalism around the globe. It challenges the existing literature and conventional wisdom about authoritarian durability by showing how regime legitimation emerges through dynamic interactions between state actors and social forces, rather than through top-down control alone.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Schmidt-Feuerheerd, Bruno"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":null,"degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Rangwala, Glen"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-06-20","date_published":"2025-06-20","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:23:57Z","subjects":["Saudi Arabia","Nationalism","Political legitimacy","Authoritarianism","Twitter"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/17a9aa91-9a58-4184-94ae-92ee31d76944/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0009000141639973"],"render_values":[{"text":"0009-0001-4163-9973","href":"https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4163-9973","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122536","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Rangwala, Glen"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Schmidt-Feuerheerd, Bruno"]},{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0009000141639973"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2025-06-20"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/391387"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Saudi Arabia","Nationalism","Political legitimacy","Authoritarianism","Twitter"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/17a9aa91-9a58-4184-94ae-92ee31d76944/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-10-31"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122536"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4f9851f7-8a86-491a-9107-f6a8c6a651c2/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["How do processes of authoritarian legitimation in Saudi Arabia work? Existing political science scholarship on authoritarianism tends to focus on repression and co-optation and ties ideologies and ideational aspects – such as the global rise of nationalist politics under authoritarian rule – exclusively to top-down state strategies. Yet, this emphasis on top-down ruling strategies fails to recognize political agency of populations in authoritarianism. This neglect of pro-government intellectual currents and movements is what I address in my PhD project, using Saudi Arabia as my case study. This thesis investigates how authoritarian nationalism – a political ideology that fuses nationalist mobilization with authoritarian rule and the centralization of political power – is sustained and legitimized from below. I observe this dynamic during processes that I term “authoritarian renewal” which denotes the replacement of cultural elites by the political leadership during an overhaul of politics and society. Empirically, I show that there is a rising nationalism in Saudi Arabia since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in 2015, replacing the old religious sources of legitimacy with Saudi cultural nationalism. But importantly, MBS does not invent these new narratives from scratch but selectively identifies and amplifies nationalist ideas previously produced by Saudi writers. Thus, despite being a revolution from above in nature, authoritarian renewal relies on active grassroots participation from what I term “nationalist cultural entrepreneurs” (NCEs) – intellectuals, journalists, and social media activists. These actors politicize national identity through their intellectual production and activism, simultaneously empowering the regime to craft novel legitimation narratives and defending the regime on Twitter while radicalizing state and society. This project draws on the empirical materials that I collected during 12 months of fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, including around 100 interviews with pro-government nationalists, some 30,000 pages from a cultural magazine that I digitized, and millions of Tweets from the Saudi Twitter sphere. This thesis is the first in-depth academic account of MBS’ Saudi Arabia with implications for the study of authoritarian nationalism around the globe. 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Existing political science scholarship on authoritarianism tends to focus on repression and co-optation and ties ideologies and ideational aspects – such as the global rise of nationalist politics under authoritarian rule – exclusively to top-down state strategies. Yet, this emphasis on top-down ruling strategies fails to recognize political agency of populations in authoritarianism. This neglect of pro-government intellectual currents and movements is what I address in my PhD project, using Saudi Arabia as my case study. This thesis investigates how authoritarian nationalism – a political ideology that fuses nationalist mobilization with authoritarian rule and the centralization of political power – is sustained and legitimized from below. I observe this dynamic during processes that I term “authoritarian renewal” which denotes the replacement of cultural elites by the political leadership during an overhaul of politics and society. Empirically, I show that there is a rising nationalism in Saudi Arabia since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in 2015, replacing the old religious sources of legitimacy with Saudi cultural nationalism. But importantly, MBS does not invent these new narratives from scratch but selectively identifies and amplifies nationalist ideas previously produced by Saudi writers. Thus, despite being a revolution from above in nature, authoritarian renewal relies on active grassroots participation from what I term “nationalist cultural entrepreneurs” (NCEs) – intellectuals, journalists, and social media activists. These actors politicize national identity through their intellectual production and activism, simultaneously empowering the regime to craft novel legitimation narratives and defending the regime on Twitter while radicalizing state and society. 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