Analysis of the Saudi Legal System Based on Talcott Parsons’ Structural-Functionalist Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Jurisprudence and Law, Baqir-ul-Ulum University, A.S.

10.22091/dplic.2025.13707.1063

Abstract

This study adopts a systematic and holistic approach, viewing the Saudi legal system not as a collection of isolated laws but as a dynamic subsystem embedded within the broader social system. Its primary objective is to assess how the legal and administrative structures in the country perform the four essential functions of Talcott Parsons’ AGIL model—Adaptation, Goal Attainment, Integration, and Latency (pattern maintenance)—to maintain systemic order and stability. Rather than offering a mere mapping, the analysis aims to demonstrate how legal institutions, such as the Royal Basic Law, human rights councils, the Amr bi-l-Maʿruf (enjoining good), and bureaucratic structures, serve a dual function: ostensibly promoting modernization and adaptation to the global environment, while fundamentally consolidating the centralized power of the monarchy and legitimizing it through religious authority. The research employs qualitative content analysis based on secondary data drawn from statutes, official documents, and academic sources. By utilizing key Parsonsian concepts such as differentiation, adaptive upgrading, and normative cohesion, this study seeks to elucidate the functional complexities of the legal system within a religious-monarchical society and to show how it sustains social order not through broad public consensus but via top-down control and the reproduction of value patterns.

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