Abstract
This paper offers an analysis of the Saudi and Hashemite dynasties and their relationships to the armed camps in their kingdoms. It centers on the question of military intervention in domestic politics and under what structural conditions it has been effectively curtailed. Certain domestic crises are examined to make explicable the longevity of these regimes in a climate of praetorian domestic politics. These monarchies are found to embrace political arrangements which are well suited to civilian control over the military establishment. These arrangements are owed to deliberate regime practices in the employ of coup-proofing measures, conditions particular to the countries’ themselves, and the structural realities of ruling monarchy. The role of monarchy as an alternative organizing principle to nationalism is examined in the context of military intervention and found to have explanatory purchase in examining the role of tribal military structures in the development of modern bureaucratic states.