This paper aims to analyze the reform processes and subsequent institutional changes in Saudi Arabia that maintain the stability of the core elite. External and internal challenges caused the Saudi elites to form new tactical alliances with the business elites, members of the new middle class, professionals, and technocrats. Economic and socioeconomic changes and interactions between new actors and the core elite led to political and economic reforms, as well as to the emergence and change of formal and informal institutions. These institutional changes offer the predominant explanation for the core elite’s stability. The author further demonstrates risks and uncertainties to elites as they walk down the narrow path of institutional change. The paper provides two case studies supporting the assumption that institutional change and traditional power structures upheld the Saudi core elite’s power. However, institutional change offers the best explanation for this stability.
