Competition or Oligarchy?: The Jordanian Business Elite in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Abstract It is of ten stated that eco nomic re form in Jor dan is com -pli cated by the fact that the rent cir cu la tion dur ing the oil boom of the 1970s and early 1980s has led to the emer gence of an allocative state sub or di nat ing the pri vate sec tor. How ever, as I will ar gue in this pa per, there ex ists a pri vate sec tor elite in Jor dan en joy ing vast priv i leges that con trib utes to the prob lem of trans form ing a rent-based econ omy into a fully-fledged, com pet i tive mar ket econ omy. The pa per fo cuses there fore on the his tor i cal de vel op ment of this busi ness elite and on its re la tion ship with se nior bu reau crats.