Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

With the coming to power of the heir to the Saudi throne, Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia has proceeded to develop a series of gender policies based on a international socialization process, highly related with an intensification of a pragmatical diplomatic activity. As a part of this process, they have developed a policy of shaming towards Saudi Arabia’s regional enemy, Iran, in order to legitimize themselves in an international scale as a Middle East leader under the etiquette of ‘reformist monarch’. In the present article we proceed to analyse the key factors of the incorporation of gender issues in the political agendas of Saudi Arabia and Iran through a local and international perspective. To do this, we attend to the internationalization of the gender agenda as well as the demands of social movements in both states. We approach this topic from two models: the Saudi model, based on the appropriation of the of the activists’ discourse and its silencing; and the Iranian, more modest in a local and international scale but directly related to the demands of the social struggles by integrating them in the power dynamics. For that, in the first place, the trajectories of the gender policies of both states are studied; secondly, we proceed to the study of the regional rivalry of both states under the construction of polarized identities; and, finally, the incorporation of gender policies as a model for the legitimation of regional leadership is analysed.