Jordan and the ‘Arab Spring’: No Challenge, No Change?

Abstract

Many of the factors that in 2011 caused major uprisings in several Arab countries and led to deep political changes were and continue to be present in Jordan. Access to social media, widespread frustration with corruption, high unemployment among the well-educated youth, and growing inequality are but a few of the elements common to Jordan and those Arab states that experienced governmental upheavals. Nevertheless, the Jordanian political reality in the years 2010/11 experienced rather limited demonstrations and modest demands from society that the ruling regime met with traditional practices that the Jordanian monarchy has used to deal with previous, non-revolutionary crisis situations since the 1970s. Although demonstrations in late 2012 were more radical than in 2010/11, they also fell short of creating a revolutionary situation as in Egypt and Tunisia one year earlier. In order to contribute to an explanation of structural particularities in Jordan during the ‘Arab Spring’ we contend that the flow of rent revenues contributes to regime stability. In the case of Jordan, its political rents were significantly higher than those of Egypt and Tunisia, and this situation may help to explain the different outcomes. Political rents contribute both to an explanation of why protests in 2010/11 were less significant and why they could be met by the regime. Yet, rent income as such does not explain political stability fully, and for that reason this article also critically discusses the institutional frame in which the rent streams are embedded.