Kral Selman Dönemi Suudi Arabistan'da toplumsal cinsiyet ve devlet: Bir neopatrimonyalizm analizi

This thesis analyzes the politics of gender in Saudi Arabia with a special attention to current reform agenda under King Salman's and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's rule. It problematizes the controversies within the current reform agenda regarding the actual status of women's rights and the state's declared steps. The thesis adopts neopatrimonialism as a conceptual framework and investigates both historical and contemporary gender politics of Saudi Arabia in order to discuss the scope of reforms and the possibility of their success. The thesis aims to show that regime type of the state effects the scope and achievements of women's rights and empowerment. In this vein, it classifies Saudi Arabia as a neopatrimonial regime and argues that engagement of the state with traditions and modernization shaped its attitudes and policies vis-à-vis women's issues. In order to tackle how neopatrimonialism shapes gender politics in Saudi Arabia, this study offers an in-depth discussion of the impact of state formation, rentier economy, process of modernization, globalization, geopolitics of global war on terrorism after 9/11, and the current social and political reforms on gender under King Salman's rule. It proposes that Saudi Arabia subordinates women's rights and empowerment into sustaining and securing the neopatrimonial authority of the state. This thesis also asks, 'where are women?' in these processes and proposes that women's agency also influences the reform discourse and policies. Yet, Saudi Arabia despite its current emphasis on gender reform securitizes women's activism and uses coercive apparatus of the state in order to oppress and silence women's voices so as to sustain its personal and familial authority.