Participation in the Elections of the 19th Jordanian Parliament: Incentives and Constraints

Abstract

Aims: The study aims to reveal the incentives and constraints of the participation in the elections of the 19th Jordanian Parliament.
 Methods: A survey was distributed to 840 electors from the study population. This study adopts the analytical descriptive approach.
 Results: The results of the study showed that the evaluation of the incentives of the electors' participation came in a medium degree. They were in the following order: first, the axis of “Motivational achievement”, with a high degree; second, the axis of "Striving for needs", with a medium degree; third, the axis of "Integration into participation", with a medium degree; and finally, the axis of "Participation preference", with a medium degree. The evaluations of the constraints of the electors' participation came in a medium degree for all axes, the first of which was the "Economic constraints", followed by the "Political constraints", the “social constraints”, and the "Cultural constraints", respectively. The results also showed that there were no statistically significant differences (α≤0.05) between the field of electoral participation incentives and the study variables, with the exception of the variables: “gender,” age, “education”, and “occupation”. In addition, this study revealed that there were no statistically significant differences between the variables in the field of constraints of the electoral participation and the study variables, with the exception of the two variables: "gender" and "age."
 Conclusion: The government and civil society institutions should make participation in the parliamentary elections a supreme national interest, and be based on impartiality, integrity and transparency.