AGSIW scholars commented on Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan, put forward by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Senior Resident Scholar Karen Young discussed socio-economic changes in the context of the plan in an interview with CBC Radio: “… we’re already seeing a bit of dissent, in a very moderated tone, in Saudi Arabia with the cuts to subsidies to electricity and water. So many people were unhappy about that, and the minister of electricity and water was actually fired over the weekend in response. So the government, I think, is trying to gauge public reaction to changes in fiscal policy. And it will be sort of experimental and slow going.”

Young also noted the impact on Saudi identity in light of new initiatives by the government to promote tourism in the kingdom in an interview with AP: “This notion of Saudi Arabia as center of the Arab world and really having ownership of not just Arab identity, but also Islamic identity. That’s a big goal.”

Senior Resident Scholar Hussein Ibish discussed Vision 2030, in addition to the U.S.-Saudi relationship, in a segment with the Arab American Institute. Ibish noted that the “main impulse here is to wean the Saudi economy… away from oil.” He argued that the plan is highly ambitious and may be risky, especially in light of the many restrictions on women.

In an article for The Washington Post, Non-Resident Fellow Fahad Nazer posited that new taxes and subsidy cuts could be “accompanied by a gradual expansion of the space available to citizens in the political-decision-making process.”