ral and Latin American countries, political upheavals, military conflicts, sanctions and embargoes have impacted many of the Arabian economies of the region causing declines in productivity and disrupting markets. This is not necessarily the case in Saudi Arabia because it has maintained close ties with the United States and has generally remained outside the military conflicts that have plagued the region (class notes). Problems associated with recovering from the ravages of war including substantial debt does not impact Saudi Arabia directly but it does indirectly influence the country's prospects for economic growth because of reduced ability to trade with its neighbors. Regardless of a particular nation's economic status, Gulf countries exhibit a substantial lag behind other regions in terms of participatory governance, something that is a significant issue for Saudi Arabia because the views and behavior of the Saudi royal family differ significantly from its overall populace that has come to resent its position, viewing it as abandoning traditional Arab and Muslim views and "selling out" to the United States. "The wave of democracy that transformed governance in most of Latin America and East Asia in the 1980s and Eastern Europe and much of Central Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s has barely reached the Arab States." (2) Constitutions, legal codes and government pronouncements signify a de jure acceptance of democracy and human rights but in many cases this represents something that is "on the books" but is really not implemented and in some cases deliberately disregarded. Most Gulf countries are characterized by a powerful executive branch that exerts significant control over the other branches in government, reducing or eliminating the efficacy of a system of checks and balances (class notes).
             In many ways, the Gulf countries are a mass of contradictions. For example, Gulf c...