Jordan’s Regime Security Under the COVID-19 Pandemic: Securitisation Against Visible and Invisible Threats

Abstract

The Jordanian authoritarian regime, headed by the Hashemite royal family, has developed a robust regime security system. Having defeated the Arab Nationalists and Palestinian militias, the most significant threats in the Kingdom’s history, and achieved peace with Israel, the monarchy appears to have legitimised its sovereignty and domestic rule. Meanwhile, nonterritorial threats represented by jihadists have continued intermittently despite a surveillance network and continuous securitisation by authorities. Worryingly, decades-long employment problems and inflationary risks are chronic security risks in Jordan in the 21st century. This study examines how Jordan’s regime is functioning against new and old internal security risks during an unprecedented emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic. Under several lockdowns, the government could securitise prominent social forces including Islamists and professional associations for regulation violations. However, it needed to be more effective against the grassroots movement that continued to criticise the government while using cyberspace as its main battleground. Most critical cases, such as the 2021 uproar over former Crown Prince Hamza, primarily became virtual movements. The battle without winners and losers, fought using information and communication technologies from the perspective of digital authoritarianism by the government and liberation technology by resistance forces, posed a new challenge for Jordan’s regime security.