Throughout the Gulf, attempts are being made to reform government institutions to make them more democratic and representative, with varying degrees of success.

Bahrain held its first parliamentary elections in 2002. But in May this year, opposition parties' calls for constitutional amendments to allow greater political participation were rejected by the government.

Also in May, Kuwait elected its first four female members of parliament, following the approval of a 2005 law allowing the election of women to the state legislature. But accusations of widespread vote-buying have since tainted the election results.

In Saudi Arabia too, attempts at reform have made only stuttering progress, as Riyadh's reformists battle with the conservative religious establishment to create a more modern state. When King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud ascended to the throne in 2005, many Saudis hoped he would usher in a new era of reform. But the influence of conservatives in the judiciary and religious police has resulted in the king approaching reform slowly to avoid destabilising the kingdom.

Reform consensus

However, momentum has picked up this year. In a sign that King Abdullah has now built up the necessary consensus to proceed with reform, he announced a ministerial reshuffle in February. The appointments included Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez as deputy minister at the Education Ministry, the highest ever government position for a Saudi woman, and the replacement of the chief of the religious police, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, with Abdulaziz bin Humain, who is seen as more moderate.

The king also replaced the conservative head of the Supreme Council of Justice, the kingdom's highest court. Among his previous statements, the outgoing Sheikh Saleh al-Lihedan had issued an edict in September 2008 saying it was acceptable to kill the owners of satellite TV stations that show content deemed to be immoral. Reform of the conservative Saudi judiciary is high on King Abdullah's reform agenda because of the absolute power the judiciary exercises in sentencing criminals.

But there has been pressure on him to go much further. In May, a group of 77 reformists petitioned King Abdullah with a 10-point plan of constitutional reforms, including an elected parliament, which would help to choose future crown princes, and a separation of the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government. The petition's signatories also demanded term limits for members of the royal family in government posts, and that the job of prime minister be given to a non-royal citizen.

It was not the first petition handed to King Abdullah in recent years. Several others have been submitted since 2005, on topics ranging from ending the driving ban for women, which attracted 1,100 signatories in September 2005, to releasing jailed reformists, in June 2008.

Reforms concerning Saudi women form an important strand of the kingdom's agenda. If the country is to have the cutting-edge, technology-driven economy it aspires to, it needs to use the skills of both its male and female graduates.

"We want to devote our time...to build a generation capable of confronting the future with science and work," said King Abdullah during the visit of US President Barack Obama to Riyadh in early June.

Women's rights

Saudi government figures show that women make up 58 per cent of the total student population at universities. But more than two-thirds of female graduates do not work, according to a May 2009 study by Salwa Abdul Munem, a professor at King Faisal University in Riyadh. Employment opportunities for women in Saudi Arabia are largely limited to IT, accounting in banks, light work at factories, education and administrative positions.

A major move forward in women's rights was taken on 10 June when, during a review by the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia committed to take steps to end the rule that requires Saudi women to have a male guardian with them in public at all times. Riyadh also accepted a recommendation to give women full legal identity, according to US-based pressure group Human Rights Watch.

"Islam guarantees a woman's right to conduct her affairs and enjoy her legal capacity," said the Saudi officials, according to a statement by Human Rights Watch.

This year is the first time that Saudi officials have submitted their human rights record to the scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Council.

While it will take a long time for Saudi Arabia's women to achieve civil rights parity with the country's men, the movement to improve women's rights is a microcosm of the growing profile of the reformist agenda in the kingdom.

In King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia has an ageing but modernising monarch. But as is always the case in the kingdom, the pace of change will be dictated not by the more radical reformists but by the conservative establishment, which is slowly recognising the economic benefits of change.