From Petro-Power to Platform Power: How Economic Elites Shape Gender Norms and Policy through Conservative Ideologies

This thesis explores how economic elites use wealth and ideological soft power to shape gender norms across different political regimes. It compares two structurally analogous cases: the transnational dissemination of Wahhabism by Saudi oil elites following the 1973 oil boom and the growing influence of U.S. tech oligarchs such as Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg on gender discourse and policy in today’s liberal democracies. The research builds on a multi-theoretical framework including Gramscian hegemony, Nye’s soft power theory, Fraser’s feminist political economy, Zuboff’s network power, and elite theory, operationalized in a critical discourse analysis and supplemented by document analysis. Findings reveal that despite differences in political context and medium, religious versus digital, both elite groups institutionalize conservative gender norms through discourse, infrastructure, and policies. The main argument of this thesis is that economic power enables the reproduction of patriarchal values under the guise of tradition, stability, meritocracy, or innovation. By offering a cross-regime comparison of elite norm production, it contributes to the field of global politics, challenging the consent about the liberal-democratic protection of gender equity.