Monarchy failed as a regime type in Iran, but still persists in Saudi Arabia. What explains that difference?

Running Head: The Iranian and Saudi Monarchies Name Lecturer Institution Date The Differences between the Iranian and the Saudi Monarchies Most Middle East countries have experienced the monarchial governance for long periods. These monarchies grew from tribal kingship and royal priesthoods making the monarchy offices to become totally hereditary which later resulted to long successive dynasties. However, some of these monarchies have since disappeared due to their inability to cope with changes and the people`s demands. Even though the Saudi Arabian monarchy has survived till now, others like the Iranian since ended. The collapse of the Iranian monarchy is attributed to the failure of King Pahlavi, the Shah, to acquire legitimacy. The Shah was not capable of acquiring the legitimacy in terms of its existing foundation or to develop an alternative legitimacy formula in terms of which his dictatorship could be justified (Tulloch, 2009, pg 4). This brought down not only his regime but also the monarchial system. This showed that lack of legitimacy by political leaders may result in disappearance of institutions closely associated with them. The commencement of the Iranian monarchy fall can be traced from the time Shah came into power in 1953. From 1953 to 1963 much poverty remained among the Iranian people and the gap between the rich and the poor grew immensely. Shah was one of the rich landowners in the time. He increased Iran`s ties with United States when he came to power. The agreement he had with a western oil corporation annoyed many. Furthermore some of the people were not pleased by the presence of many Americans in the area. This lead to some discontented groups of the Iranians deciding to form some underground groups called the Fedaiyan-e Islam (Arjmand, 1986, pg 23). This group attempted to assassinate Shah`s prime minister which prompted him to react by executing a few members of the group. On top this; Shah was worried about the opinion of ultra-conservative Muslims though he enjoyed the support of the Iranian middle class. On the other some clerics were uncomfortable with Shah`s monarchy. This is because they could recall that shah`s father had in the year 1936 barred clerics from acting as judges in state courts. When shah came to power in the 1954, he had plans to modernize Iran economically and socially. He therefore sought to balance his increase in power with reforms that would win more favor from the common Iranians. However, some landowners and clerics were loudly opposed to the reforms. Fearing the possible rise of opposition to the reforms shah decided a crackdown on dissent. He then decided to attack some theological students who were agitating against a scheduled opening of a liquor store on March 22, n1963. This caused a disturbance that spread to other students in the city of Tabriz (Niblock ,2006 ). This actions lead to killing of hundreds by ...