A Social Contract Moment: Egypt’s National Action Charter and Saudi Arabia’s Ten-Point Program Compared

Abstract

Egypt’s National Action Charter and Saudi Arabia’s Ten-Point Program were is-sued in 1962 amid a context of domestic and regional insecurity for both regimes. This article reviews the context that shaped each regime’s pledges for both political and (rather similar) socioeconomic reforms, challenging the common analy-sis of the so-called authoritarian bargain as a simplistic exchange of economic benefits for the political rights of citizens. Both documents also simultaneously embedded their proposed reforms in their country’s respective legacies, ushering in a new era of state-led development.