Power and autonomy in the Saudi state : case study analysis of policy implementation.

There is a substantial literature that now exists on public policy analysis which recognises
a variety of issues surrounding implementation. Studies of the actions of public policy
service deliverers or what Lipsky (1980) calls street level bureaucrats (SLBs), reveals
numerous examples where they misinterpret or contest the conceived purpose of policies
formulated at the central level and, therefore, fail to deliver policy in a manner consistent
with the ideals of core policymakers. In the case of Saudi Arabia however, little is known
about the factors that contribute to the implementation of public policy there or the degree
of political autonomy experienced by Saudi SLBs at the implementation stage. The
purpose of this study is to address this lacuna by exploring the nature of power and
autonomy in the Saudi political system through a case study of public education policy.
The research examines the way in which such policy is implemented by secondary schools
principals and education managers (SLBs) in three different local education authorities
across Saudi Arabia, namely in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam cities, and examined the
variable degree of devolved power or political autonomy experienced by these SLBs in the
implementation process. The research was drawn from semi-structured interviews
conducted with secondary school principals and various managers of education at the local
level, as well as with senior officials in the Saudi Ministry of Education (MoE). The issues
that emerged were mainly related to key aspects of power relationships between different
bureaucratic tiers of the MoE and education policy process within the policy formulation,
implementation and monitoring stages. The key finding of the research indicates that SLBs
have a considerable degree of discretionary power in the implementation process, leading
to variation not only between the central policy formulation stage and the local
implementation level but also across the 3 regions. This is explained by the nature of the
Saudi governance structure and, more particularly, the education policy itself, which lacks
clear objectives, instructions, rules, procedures and mechanisms for monitoring and
feedback. These findings challenged the existing literature on the Saudi State that explains
the authoritarian, top-down nature of the Saudi political system which assumes policy
made by the centre is closely translated further down the policy-chain at the policy
implementation stage by SLBs.