A review and critique of the Saudization metanarrative: Bringing 'the citizen' into focus
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[Thesis]
[Thesis]
[Thesis]
Faisal Ahmed Kattan
Adely, Fida J.; Sassoon, Joseph
Georgetown University
2015
133
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-71220-9
M.A.
Arab Studies
Georgetown University
2015
In 1994, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia introduced Saudization policy to address the problems that emerged from the rapid modernization that followed the 1970s oil boom; namely unemployment and a national labor force heavily dependent on expatriate labor. The policy's basic objective: to increase the proportion of Saudi nationals in the private sector, and develop a national labor force capable of sustaining a knowledge-based economy. Since its inception, the policy has registered low to moderate levels of success. A report issued by the Ministry of Labor in 2011 confirmed the policy's stagnation. The question of why the policy was stagnating was taken up by a legion of scholars and policy experts. The literature that emerged argued that in order to increase private sector employment and improve the competitiveness of Saudi workers Saudi Arabia must focus primarily on improving the quality of education and on labor policy reform. This thesis takes issue with the explanations that have emerged to explain the failures of Saudization policy; a discourse I refer to as the 'Saudization metanarrative'.
Education Policy; Labor economics; Political science
Social sciences;Education;Citizen;Citizenship;Education;Labor;Saudi arabia;Saudization