Contenu du sommaire : Jordanie : une stabilité de façade

The representations on Jordan, whose alleged stability is referred to a combination of regional factors, have constantly been shaped by geopolitical considerations. However, since the 1990s, the country has undertaken structural changes that increased social inequalities, leading to claims for political reforms prior to Arab uprisings in 2011, that developed significantly until autumn 2012. Syrian conflict played an important demobilizing role in the contestations process that actively resumed in 2018 in Jordan, along with the perspective of a settlement of the situation in Syria. These mobilizations highlight deep tensions within the state apparatus between liberal and conservative wings. This internal crisis intersects with a rapprochement on the “deal of the century” between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US. Such a combination of internal and regional constraints puts King Abdullah II of Jordan in a situation of isolation that can be costly for the country.

This article seeks to shed light on the visions of the King of Jordan Abdullah II and to analyze them based on what is named the “Royal Discussion Papers” which amount to 7 Papers spanning the years 2012 until 2017. In reality, the RDP are articles which the King published in the newspapers under his name, through which he expresses his ideas and proposals to everyone (the Government and the people) whilst giving them the freedom to reflect on them and to discuss them prior to their becoming a “roadmap” for the Government in particular, or so should be the case. These RDP may be considered one of the methods and tools of the Jordanian monarch to tackle the issues and crises facing the Jordanian State, through which are manifested the vision of the Jordanian State on the one hand, and the impact of political, economic and security transformations in the region and the world on the other hand, particularly in the stage of what is called the “Arab Spring” 2011 stage until the present time. Despite the repeated promises in these RDP, particularly the first five Papers, to achieve “political reform” by opening horizons for creating a Jordanian political system (parliamentary government) under which the King is like the monarch of Britain “who reigns but does not rule” as the opposition is demanding, these promises have not been fulfilled at all, particularly since the winds of the Arab Spring have calmed down and do not anymore constitute “an existential threat” to the King and the Kingdom. This actually means that the RDP were no more than a “tool” to overcome the difficult political, economic and security conditions through which the Kingdom was passing rather than being a firm “strategy” in the direction of “political reform” to face the future and its challenges.

In August 2017, after boycotting municipal elections for more than ten years, the Islamic action front, the political arm of the Muslim brotherhood, took the opportunity of State decentralization to invest again the Jordanian local electoral and political scenes. This article explores the case of Zarqa, where the alliance formed by the party in 2016, the National coalition for reform, won several seats including the one of the mayor. It will examine the obstacles faced by the elected members of the Islamic action front, from the implicit repression of the regime through its control of municipal finances to local oppositions against Islamists' takeover. Nevertheless, the members of the party can benefit from the Brotherhood's resources in order to minimize the cost of these resistances and maintain a political authority within the municipality.

In 2018, the announcement of a new income tax reform causes unprecedented protests in Jordan, which come to question the State economic policies orientation. It has been 30 years indeed that reforms are conducted in the name of the fight against public debt and for the advent of a new “post-rentier social contract”. Through agreements with the IMF, these policies lead to major economic transformations without even reducing the country's reliance on foreign funding. They also result into gradual erosion of the social safety net and the impoverishment of the population. This article proposes to introduce the terms of the debate raised by this new debt crisis.

In the absence of an integrated spatial planning policy, Jordan is esperiencing a strong territorial imbalance. This is perceptible through the strengthening of the weight of Amman, an uncontrolled urban sprwal and an economic anemia of many territories. The reception of 750000 refugees since 2011, out of a total population of 10 million has accentuated these territorial imbalances, the latter having joined the big cities in search of informal jobs. Decentralization since the August 2017 municipal and governorship elections is presented as a tool for territorial rebalancing. But it takes the form of a capture of power by designated tribal elites which are anxious to redistribute State rent to restricted circles in order to dilute the problems of slower economic growth.

Informal political practices sometimes subvert formal political institutions and laws. In this article, I will discuss the practice of wasta in Jordan. A common practice in Arab countries, wasta is a form of patron-client relations by which less-powerful citizens seek to exercise influence with more-powerful government officials. I find that there is serious unfairness inherent in the practice, however, because some people “have wasta” and some do not, or have less than others. I argue that, because it turns government officials into sources of privileged access, the practice of wasta erodes social trust, leads to poor assessments of government performance, and distances citizens from the political life of the country. To make this argument, I use data from interviews I conducted with Jordanian youth.

The controversy surrounding the repeal of law article 308 of Jordan's Penal Code, also known as marriage rape law, in 2017 invites a critical assessment of women's activism in the Kingdom. Women's activists, to whom the law was a violation of human rights and a reward to rapists instead of punishment, were opposed by critics who demanded the marriage provisions within the law be retained. Such provision resolved children's legitimacy problems, and above all reduced the threat of honor killings. Their objections humble the women's activists' claims to women's emancipation, by emphasizing their failure to consider that as a result of repeal rather than amendment, certain women, particularly the poorer, are worse off. This controversy renewed the enduring critique of class bias in the women's movement. Liberation projects inspired by middle class women's interest are distinct from and even opposed to those of working class women, leading this campaign to be yet another missed opportunity for women's liberation.

This study aims at examining the developments that have been witnessed by the external environment of the Jordanian media before and after the Arab Spring. The external environment of the Jordanian media refers to legislative, political, economic, and regulatory changes and their impact on the liberalization of the media and the development in the quality of professional performance. The study focuses on three main themes. The first one is about the impact of changes in the political environment, specifically in the field of freedoms, on professional performance. The second one deals with the impact of the economic environment and the effect of the liberalizing patterns of ownership on the creation of a successful business media sector and the media industry. The third one refers to the impact of the legislative and regulatory environments on providing new and better opportunities for modernizing the Jordanian media and ridding it of traditional restrictions. This study attempts to examine the problematic issue of how much the Jordanian media have benefited from the accumulation of changes that Jordan has been through, more particularly the changes which occurred during the Arab Spring, the reform and the suppression of the external traditional restrictions, manifested in political, regulatory, and legislative effects.

Eight years after the beginning of the conflict in Syria, Jordan hosts nearly 660000 Syrian refugees. The dilemmas connected to the different modalities of refugees' management between the « duty of hospitality » and the protection of the socioeconomic interests of host communities, are still on the agenda, in a context where the international assistance has progressively gone over the humanitarian assistance covering the economic development of the country. This article, point out the evolution of the Jordanian welcoming policy, especially concerning refugee access to the job market. The issue of status and life conditions are analysed as an indicator of the relationship between Jordan and the « foreigner », between the state and society, and of funders' influence on internal political issues.

It was not until the interwar colonial partitions that the age-old fluidity of the Near East was broken, as nation-states began hesitantly to take shape. This process has in fact not yet met with success today, one century later. The reception by Jordan of Palestinian refugees (1948, 1967, 1991) was thus experienced in this new country in contradictory ways: on the one hand (as in the Persian Gulf countries) they helped in building the nation, but at the same time they unsettled inter-tribal relations and threatened control by the new Hashemite rulers who had come from Arabia. The volatility of these relations today is therefore not new, the more so because the feeling of belonging to the Palestinian nation is strengthening despite the passage of time among these citizens who remain second-tier, despite their omnipresence in all trades except the military, even in the Court, since the queen is Palestinian. But at the same time that identity is coupled with a growing pan-Arab or pan-Syrian consciousness, which has nothing to do with the political movements of the past, and everything with the transnational imagination tending, paradoxically, to bring together the disparate Jordanian population groups.

Jordan has always been able to cope with the contradictions that are generated by its pro-Western strategic and political choices. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump's determination to sort out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict adds to Jordan's challenges, bearing in mind that the majority of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian origin. The question now is whether and how the King of Jordan will be able to overcome these obstacles?

This article questions the complex geopolitical entity made of the Jordanian-Israeli-Palestinian trio from its inception to nowadays from a Jordanian perspective in interaction with the positions held by the Zionist/Israeli, Palestinian and American actors.

Jordan is a unique country in the Middle East where it has a complex relationship with its Gulf neighbours. The latter grant it substantial aid because they need the Hashemite monarchy to remain stable and want to limit any contagion of social protest movements. Despite this solidarity of interests, its relations with Abu Dhabi and Riyad had deteriorated sharply in order to warm up in view of the bellicose context in the Persian Gulf. Jordan could play a central role in the Gulf, either within the GCC or in a broader structure. Its assets are many: the skill of King Abdullah II, a diplomatic adress, one of the most sophisticated armies in the Arab world, and the support of the West.

The southern Red Sea and its extension to the Gulf of Aden, on the east coast of Africa, is at the center of the greed of various powers, both regional and global, for a multitude of reasons. This infatuation had a mixed effect on the stability of the Horn of Africa. On the one hand, the countries of the region have benefited from the political support of the regional and world powers that have gained a foothold there, as well as from a rent situation in various forms: lease of military bases, construction of infrastructures, financial assistance, investment of all kinds. In return, they had to give up some of their power of decision and freedom of action. On the other hand, the regional rush on the Horn of Africa has had a positive impact in promoting reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which has led to a relaxation in the region. On the other hand, the interventionism of regional powers, marked by rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, on the one hand, Qatar and Turkey, on the other, exacerbated instability in Somalia and deepened its fragmentation.

This article constitutes a review of the causes of different clashes of opinions between Arab régimes and more broadly Arab intellectuals. The author has identified nine successive historical sources of clashes or discord that have dragged the Arab World from the dynamics of successive failures to the dynamics of self-destruction. This last dynamic has begun from the beginning of the present decade. The present Yemeni war is an illustration of this state of Arab affairs, not mentioning Syria, Libya and to a lesser extent Iraq, as well as Somalia on the periphery of the Arab world. The author of this article concludes that it is high time in the Arab world to stop permanent and obsessional discussions about religion, so as to be able to discuss the ways and means for the Arab world to master modern sciences and technologies and fight effectively against unemployment of young Arabs that might be recruited by terrorist organizations.