Déjà Vu in the Kingdom of Jordan?

Abstract

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan constitutes a remarkable case of regime stability in the Middle East and North Africa region. The 2011 Arab Uprisings that swept through most of the countries in the Arab Middle East did not engulf the Kingdom of Jordan, as foreseen. At the height of the protests, Jordan employed a decades-old regime-survival strategy to cope with increased opposition. Having said that, the June protests in 2018 and the subsequent increased socio-economic problems unlocked an ascendant phenomenon in Jordanian politics. In light of this, this article analyzes what is “new” in Jordanian politics since the 2011 Uprisings, and as a corollary, it will address the mobilization of East Bank tribes as the new source of opposition and also the newly emerging direction of state–opposition dynamics. This article also scrutinizes the shortcomings of the authoritarian persistence paradigm in the case of the Kingdom of Jordan.