The rule of the Al Saud family is expected to remain secure in 2011-15, with opposition movements fragmented and suppressed. The power of the king, Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud, will be checked by the need to maintain consensus among senior princes with strong power bases of their own, and to accommodate the conservative clerical establishment. Limited institutional capacity and a large and inefficient bureaucracy will also constrain policymaking and implementation. The king's personal standing is bolstered by his reputation for piety, but there is believed to be significant resentment of Al Saud rule, owing to perceptions of corruption, vast inequalities in the distribution of wealth, high youth unemployment, the often arbitrary application of the law and the government's strong ties with the US. Nevertheless, the potential for an outbreak of unrest on the scale witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt is relatively low, given the government's huge oil-related wealth (which should allow it to maintain extensive price subsidies and continue to hand out pay rises for public-sector workers), and the government's claimed religious credentials-domestically, the king uses the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. However, inspired by the protesters in North Africa and emulating their tactics of using social networking websites, smaller groups may mobilise to protest against specific issues, such as youth unemployment or the authorities' failure to prevent the recent floods in Jeddah, while refraining from directly challenging the position of the Al Saud.

Uncertainty persists about the political succession, which will be an increasingly pressing issue over the forecast period, since both the king and the crown prince, Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud, are in their late 80s. Prince Sultan has had a long-standing illness thought to be cancer and he is unlikely to survive King Abdullah. By law, the heir to the throne must be a male descendant of the country's founder, Abdel-Aziz al-Saud. Traditionally, the crown prince is appointed by the king, but King Abdullah has established a formal council of the direct descendants of Abdel-Aziz to help to determine the succession. This is intended to ensure that future kings have broad legitimacy within the family, but its mandate does not begin until after King Abdullah's reign. The interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud, is widely seen as the most likely successor since the king appointed him as second deputy prime minister in 2009. He has a strong internal power base and is regarded as a conservative; principally concerned with stability, he is unlikely to promote reform. He has won some support in the West by tackling domestic militant Islamist violence. Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud, the governor of Riyadh, the capital, is another contender, and a less well-known prince could emerge as a consensus candidate. There will be increasing focus on the eventual transfer of power to the next generation, with the sons of Prince Sultan, Prince Nayef and Prince Salman being among the possible contenders.

An ongoing threat of attacks by Saudi militant groups loosely aligned with al-Qaida remains. Attacks on government and Western targets will be attempted, possibly from Yemen, although Saudi Arabia's border defences and military capability will be strengthened by arms purchases. The government will continue to address the issue by arresting suspected militants-it claims 149 have been arrested in the past eight months-and sometimes by attempting to co-opt them by putting them through rehabilitation programmes. If Yemeni government efforts to tackle al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula-an offshoot of al-Qaida that has become established in Yemen-fail, there is an increasing likelihood of direct Saudi intervention in the country.

The king has taken steps towards implementing some socially liberalising reforms, and this will continue to risk provoking a backlash from within the clerical establishment and from conservatives. Job shortages, rising unemployment and the withdrawal of subsidies, particularly on electricity, could also lead to discontent among Saudi nationals, which may create unrest in the medium term. There is also a risk that the marginalised Shia minority could become restive. They face tight restrictions on religious practices and economic discrimination.