Personal Status Law Reform in Saudi Arabia: Democratic Opening or Authoritarian Calibration

When do personal status law reforms signal democratic opening, and when do they serve authoritarian recalibration? The paper examines the 2022 codification of Saudi Arabia’s Personal Status Law to identify factors that distinguish genuine power redistribution from rebranding of patriarchal control. The literature on gender reforms in the Middle East and North Africa underscores that family laws remain among the hardest areas to reform in the region. When regimes reform family laws, reforms are often interpreted as either signs of ascending the good governance ladder or instruments of authoritarian legitimation. This is especially evident in the case of Saudi Arabia. Long considered one of the most conservative states regarding women’s rights, Saudi Arabia introduced its first codified Personal Status Law in 2022 and expanded it further in 2024. Building upon and expanding on the literature, I offer a framework that identify factors that differentiate democratizing reforms from authoritarian recalibration. The framework focuses on two factors: the legal architecture and the feminist opportunity structure. By the legal architecture, the reference here is to the content of the reform itself, such as the legal language, enforcement mechanism, and scope of change. By the feminist opportunity structure, the reference here is to the context shaped by regime governance logic, clerical leverage, feminist activists’ capacity, and international signaling. Drawing on legal analysis, I argue that Saudi family law reforms recalibrate patriarchal authority because a) the substance of reforms remains aligned with the regime’s patriarchal logic, and b) the reforms unfolded in the absence and amid the persecution of feminist activists. The article advances debates in comparative politics, gender politics, and authoritarian governance by specifying the conditions that distinguish substantive reform from authoritarian signaling. It offers a framework to systematically evaluate the meaning and significance of gender reforms broadly, and personal status laws specifically, across autocratic settings.