*** Note:  The work below is solely that of Elizabeth Jordan.  Any attempt to copy it without permission from the author is plagiarism and not worth it since you will be caught.***

Many events in the history of Jordan have contributed to the political environment which exists today. One of the most important of these is the civil war which took place in the country during September 1970 (known as Black September) in which the Palestinian population in Jordan violently challenged the rule of King Hussein and the Hashemite Family. This challenge formed because the refugees were upset by the economic and political chaos that followed the capture of the West Bank and its largely Palestinian population by Israel during the Arab-Israeli War in 1967. King Hussein deployed the army and soon defeated the internal threats to his rule (Gubser 1983:102).

In 1988, King Hussein relinquished Jordan’s legal claims to the West Bank. This move signaled that King Hussein was renouncing his claim to the loyalty of the West Bank Palestinians. Jordan’s relinquishment of the West Bank was seen by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as a step towards the future establishment of a Palestinian state and therefore resulted in increased support for the Hashemite regime among the East Bank Palestinians (Brand 1995: 53).

Throughout its recent history Jordan has implemented policies that have changed its political environment dramatically. In 1989, King Hussein began a program of economic and political liberalization in Jordan but in recent years this process has begun to reverse (Omaar 1997: 4). One of the most influential events of Jordan’s recent history is the signing of a peace treaty with Israel in October 1994. This treaty began a process of normalization between Jordan and Israel and formally ended the state of war between the two countries (Kidron 1994: 21).

Social Context of Politics

The Palestinian presence in Jordan since 1948 has caused many conflicts between this group and the Transjordanians who lived in Jordan prior to the influx of Palestinian refugees. The Transjordanians fear that the large presence of Palestinians in Jordan may lead to the fruition of the historic Israeli claim that "Jordan is Palestine" whereas the Palestinians see the Jordanian government as a threat to Palestinian nationalism. The 1970 Palestinian uprising was viewed by the Transjordanians as a show of the ungratefulness of the Palestinians to the country of Jordan and also contributed to a view of the Palestinians as potential traitors (Brand 1995:53). The 1988 withdrawal from the West Bank was seen by both the Transjordanians and the Palestinians as a move in support of the formation of a Palestinian state. However, with the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in October of 1994, Palestinian fears that Jordan is trying to become the voice for the Palestine people have resurfaced because of the clause in the treaty that protects Jordan’s role to protect the Islamic holy sites, such as Jerusalem, which are located in the West Bank (Kuttab 1994:8).

The Israel-Jordan peace treaty is also opposed by professional unions in Jordan most of which are controlled by the Islamist political parties. These groups believe that normalization with Israel is happening too quickly. Recent polls have found that about a third of the population of Jordan strongly opposes peace with Israel while twenty percent of the population say they will give unconditional support to the king and the Hashemite regime’s decision to enter into this treaty. The former group is made up mainly of Islamic religious fanatics and "hard-liners among the Palestinian refugees" (Hawatmeh 1994: 7). The latter group is mainly members of the army and security forces.

The process of democratization in Jordan is not viewed very optimistically by some Jordanians, especially the members of the Islamist political parties in opposition to the Hashemite regime. In fact, some groups feel that instead of receiving more democratic freedoms they are being denied those freedoms repeatedly (Kamal 29 August 1997: 10). This sentiment runs especially through the opposition parties in Jordan who feel that recent laws have restricted their ability to participate freely in the political process. One of these laws is the 1993 Press Law that restricted the activity of some journalists and banned the publishing of any material critical of King Hussein or Hashemite rule (Kamal 30 May 1997: 12).

The citizens of Jordan are aware of the activities of the government because of the media which has been allowed to only show the government in a favorable light. Therefore, the public is presented with the image of a government that gets things done for its citizens. Also, King Hussein’s government has in the past been largely successful in the political socialization of the citizens of Jordan (Brand 1995: 50). Through tactics such as the displaying of photographs of the king in both government and private offices, shops, and even in homes, the king has been set up as a symbol of Jordan among it citizens and most Jordanians even view King Hussein as the father of the Jordanian family (Salloukh 1996: 52).

This political socialization leads to two types of subject political culture in Jordan: a voluntary and an involuntary. The process of political socialization has led to the feeling that the king has a large amount of legitimacy and thus results in a subject political culture in which the people subject themselves to the rule of the king while still holding on to the belief that they are influencing the government. In other words, people believe that because they happen to hold the same views as the government that they are influencing the government whereas in reality the government may be influencing their views. This political culture is essentially subject but is viewed by the Jordanians who are a part of it as a type of participant political culture so I call it a voluntary type of subject political culture. Another type of subject political culture has developed among those opposing the government, like the Islamist parties and some Palestinians, who feel they cannot influence the actions of the government and are thus subject to the king’s rule regardless of their feelings about it; this is the involuntary subject political culture in Jordan.

This group of Jordanians feel that, despite King Hussein’s democratization plan, they are still not being allowed the chance to influence the national government because of their opposing stance on many issues including the normalization of Israel (Hawatmeh 1994: 7). This is a truer form of a subject political culture. These Jordanians feel that they are subject to the rule of the king and can exhibit no influence on it through institutions set up by the government itself, like voting. They feel that Hashemite regime is unresponsive to their concerns. This group of people are made up mainly of Islamist parties and some Palestinians who feel that it is time that the government makes good on its promise to liberalize the political and economic environments in Jordan especially in the area of promoting public and democratic freedoms.

Political Participation

There is no clear-cut method of political participation evident in Jordan. It was mentioned in the previous section that members of opposition political parties and some Palestinians feel that they cannot influence the government through traditional methods such as voting. However, this does not mean that these groups do not try to influence the government at all. In fact, recently these groups have attempted to raise their issues by stepping outside of the Jordanian government.

In November of 1997 the first parliamentary elections were held since the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty. This was seen as a chance for opponents of the treaty to voice their dissent by electing candidates to parliament that supported their views. However, 1993 changes in the electoral laws made this next to impossible. The 1993 reforms changed the system of voting in Jordan from list-voting in which a person ranked his choices to a system of one-person/one-vote (Omaar 1997: 4). This change made it harder for members of the Islamist parties to get elected because the tendency of the Jordanian voter is to vote first for a candidate with the same tribal affiliation and then for the candidate of a political party. In other words, tribal affiliation is more important to the Jordanian voter than ideals expressed by political parties (Omaar 1997: 4).

Many groups in Jordan viewed these changes in the electoral system and the government’s tighter control on the media as a restriction of personal freedoms and therefore decided to boycott the 1997 elections. Groups that participated in this boycott included the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist and opposition political parties and some Palestinian activists against the peace treaty with Israel. The result of this boycott was that over ninety percent of the candidates in the election were independents (Omaar 1997: 4). This candidate pool resulted in the election of a parliament that is largely pro-Hashemite.

Many Jordanians, however, are still remaining within the workings of the political system because they see themselves gaining from the support they give the government. This notion is fading recently because of the liberalization process but up until a few years ago participation in politics was encouraged by the promise of reward from the government. This was especially true in the Transjordanian and Palestinian populations. In attempt to bring both of these groups into the national identity the government began issuing government jobs and grants for businessmen to supporters of the government (Brand 1995: 48). This practice has diminished because of the privatization of the economy currently taking place in Jordan. However, tradition prevails with many Jordanians and thus many eligible voters still participated in the 1997 elections despite the absence of true opposition to the government.

Despite this recurring use of the patron-client model of political participation, the trend in Jordan seems to be moving away from methods like voting and into more active methods such as the boycott mentioned earlier. However, it is not clear whether this active method will catch on at the popular level in Jordan. I believe the active method of participation will slowly begin to catch on because of the declining number of Jordanians who see the Hashemite regime as always working in their best interests. If King Hussein continues to limit the democratic freedoms of Jordan’s citizens through such measures as the Press Laws of 1993 and the electoral laws of the same year, then Jordanian citizens will have no choice but to move outside the political institutions to make their voice heard. The voluntary subject political culture will not hold in Jordan if the government does not actively return to its plan of democratization because the citizens of Jordan will cease to see the government as an entity working in their best interests.

Bibliography

Brand, Laurie A. "Palestinians and Jordanians: A Crisis of Identity." Journal of Palestine Studies vol. 4 (Summer 1995): 46-61.

Gubser, Peter. Jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983.

Hawatmeh, George. "Selling the peace." Middle East International No. 546 (21 March 1997): 9-10.

Kamal, Sana. "Fettering the press" Middle East International No. 551 (30 May 1997): 11-12.

Kamal, Sana. "Election boycott widens" Middle East International No. 557 (29 August 1997): 10.

Kidron, Peretz. "Peace treaty agreement" Middle East International No. 486 (21 October 1994): 20-21.

Kuttab, Daoud. "Palestinians divided" Middle East International No. 487 (4 November 1994): 8.

Omaar, Rageh. "Elections a tribal affair" Middle East International No. 561 (24 October 1997): 4.

Salloukh, Bassel. "State Strength, Permeability, and Foreign Policy Behavior: Jordan in Theoretical Perspective" Arab Studies      Quarterly Vol. 18 No. 2 (Spring 1996): 39-61.