Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2023, pp. 57-58
Waging Peace
On Sept. 7, the Arab Center Washington DC conducted a virtual discussion with Curtis Ryan of Appalachian State University, Tuqa Nusairat of the Atlantic Council, Arwa Shobaki of the Project on Middle East Democracy and Sean Yom of Temple University. The group examined the Jordanian government’s efforts to mitigate political and economic discontent via reform measures.
Ryan noted that reforms announced by the Jordanian government in 2021 are the latest in a series of such initiatives going back to the 1980s. The government implemented each round of reforms, he said, in response to street protests and public activism. The 2021 reforms, Ryan explained, are a ten-year package aimed at building a political system featuring a stronger parliament and greater representation for women, youth, people with disabilities and different governorates in the country. To fulfill the reforms, he observed, the government will have to encourage participation in political parties, which it has historically discouraged.
Ryan said Jordanians are still waiting to see if the reforms will actually be implemented and “can be forgiven for being a little skeptical, having experienced various rounds of reforms…but not all were implemented, or they were implemented and then there was regression.” Additionally, political reforms are not the foremost concern for Jordanians, he observed: “Most people are more concerned with the unemployment rate and with the cost of living.”
Nusairat concentrated on the opposition movement’s focus on socio-economic issues. Along with a weak economy, the country faces high poverty and unemployment rates as well as declining trust in the government’s ability to solve these problems, she said. While the country previously faced largely external challenges, such as the Syrian civil war, “Jordan’s biggest threat today is much less conflict on its borders or terrorism, it’s really internal.” Such frustrations, Nusairat added, are the fuel for protests and strikes.
She observed that one way Jordan has responded to recent discontent is by utilizing the state of emergency implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to place “new restrictions on protests” and “silence opposition movements and public protests.” The other way the government has responded, she continued, is with new economic modernization measures. The most recent plan aims to decrease unemployment and increase GDP growth, which Nusairat called “very ambitious” and probably beyond Jordan’s ability to implement.
“Modernization and reform can’t succeed if the government doesn’t commit real resources toward resolving societal issues hugely affecting youth,” Shobaki cautioned. Of particular concern to young people is Jordan’s new cybercrimes law, which is “even more restrictive than its predecessor,” with overly broad definitions of crimes for online speech. “The chilling effect of this legislation will be great. Self-censorship is already high in the Kingdom and this will only make it more prevalent,” she warned, adding that “this feels like the last nail in the coffin for free expression in Jordan.” She recommended the Biden administration condition aid to Jordan on it meeting certain reform benchmarks, because despite American investments, “Jordan’s democracy and human rights record is only getting worse.”
Yom spoke about the 2021 reform package and how much progress has been made toward achieving its goals. “This was a very ambitious project to democratize Jordan,” he began, but progress has been “incremental and slow.” This delay, in turn, has only amplified Jordanians’ cynicism because “the practice of promising political reforms that are never honored is unfortunately a recurring pattern in Jordanian politics.”
Amman’s bullish roadmap projects that Jordan would be a constitutional monarchy in ten years, which would be a “radical shift in the nature of power and authority” in the country, Yom noted. Practically, he continued, this would mean that “the state and society must both accept electoral outcomes” they may dislike, and that a representative parliament would have real authority over matters such as war, budgeting and national security, as well as cabinet and prime minister selection.
While some may be hesitant to embrace these changes, Yom contended that “the true threat to Jordanian stability…is when alienated populations are discontented so deeply that they rise up in rage and protest and then threaten to tear down their own governments.”
—Alex Shanahan
