Economic Crisis and Post-Rentier Democratization in the Arab World: The Case of Jordan

Canadian Journal of Political Science

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 69-98

  Brynen, Rex ^a  

^a MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84960103627     PISSN: 00084239     EISSN: 17449324     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S000842390000192X     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. Hudson, “After the Gulf War: Prospects for Democratization in the Arab World,” Middle East Journal 45 (1991), 407–26.
2. Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1986).
3. Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries, Vol. 2: Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1988), 212.
4. For an overview of the concept, see Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani, The Rentier State (London: Croom Helm, 1987
5. Jacques Delacroix, “The Distributive State in the World System,” Studies in Comparative International Development 15 (1980), 3–21.
6. Giacomo Luciani, “Allocation vs. Production States: A Theoretical Framework,” and Hazem Beblawi, “The Rentier State in the Arab World,” in Luciani and Beblawi, eds., The Rentier State, 65–84, 85–98, respectively.
7. Theda Skocpol, “Rentier State and Shi‘a Islam in the Iranian Revolution,” Theory and Society 11 (1982), 269. In the Iranian case, however, the increasing autonomy of the state appears to have come at the cost of societal alienation from the Shah’s regime.
8. Ruth Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1986 [Washington: World Priorities, 1986], 33–39).
9. Peter Flynn, “Class, Clientalism and Dependency: Some Mechanisms of Internal Dependence and Control,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 12 (1974), 148.
10. Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 183.
11. Giacomo Luciani, “Economic Foundations of Democracy and Authoritarianism: The Arab World in Comparative Perspective,” Arab Studies Quarterly 10 (1988), 463.
12. Robert Bates and Da-Hsiang Donald Lien, “A Note on Taxation, Development, and Representative Government,” Politics and Society 14 (1985) 53–70, and Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
13. Interviews with Ibrahim Bakr (former head of Jordanian Bar Association), Amman, August 20, 1989, and Layla Sharif (senator and former minister of information), Amman August 22, 1989.
14. Taqrir khas: ajhiza al-amn wa-idwat al-qama’ fi al-urdun” [Special Report: The Security Apparatuses and Means of Repression in Jordan], Shu'un filastiniyya 35 (1974) 153-62
15. Laurie Brand, Palestinians in the Arab World: Institution Building and the Search for State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 180-185
16. Arab World: Institution Building and the Search for State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 180-85; and Amnesty International, Human Rights Protection After the State of Emergency (New York: Amnesty International, 1990), 4–10.
17. Na'man Issa Fakhoury, An Analytical Study of Jordan's Balance of Payments, 1950–68 (Amman: Central Bank of Jordan, 1974), 75
18. Hanna S.Odeh, Economic Development of Jordan 1954–71 (Amman: Ministry of Culture and Information, 1972), 2
19. Ministry of Planning, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1986-90 (Amman: National Press, 1986), 2-7.
20. Ministry of Planning, Five Year Plan, 1986–90, 8 – 10
21. Ministry of Planning, Five Year Plan, 1986–90, 8–10, and Michael P. Mazur, Economic Growth and Development in Jordan (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979), 96–98.
22. Ministry of Planning, Five Year Plan, 1986–1990, 15-25
23. Robert E. Looney, “Worker Remittances in the Arab World: Blessing or Burden?” Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 12 [1990], 29).
24. For an overview of Jordanian tax policy, see Hossein Askari, John T. Cummings and Michael Glover, Taxation and Tax Policies in the Middle East (London: Butterworth, 1982), 148–51, 272–76.
25. Mazur, Economic Growth and Development in Jordan, 235.
26. Robert B. Cunningham, The Bank and the Bureau: Organizational Development in the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1988), 123–24.
27. Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1986, 34.
28. Abu Jaber, Buhbe and Smadi, eds., Income Distribution in Jordan, Tables 6A.3-4, and Cunningham, The Bank and the Bureau, 113.
29. Jordan’s 1986–1990 development plan, for example, called for JD951, 964 (35 per cent of regional investment spending) to be spent in predominantly Transjordanian governates of Tafilah, Karak and Ma’an, which together represent only 10 per cent of the population (Ministry of Planning, Five Year Plan, 1986–90
30. P. J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan: A Study of the Arab Legion 1921–1957 (New York: Praeger, 1967)
31. Joseph Hiatt, “State Formation and the Incorporation of Nomads: Local Change and Continuity among Jordanian Bedouin,” in Peter Skalnik, eds., Outwitting the State (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1989), 72–73
32. Juredini and McLaurin, Jordan: The Impact of Social Change, 18–22, 61–65).
33. Jordan Times, June 14, 1989, 6, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service—Near East and South Asia (hereafter FBIS-NES).
34. Ministry of Planning, Five Year Plan, 1986–1990, 75–116.
35. Lamis Andoni, ‘’Jordan,” in Rex Brynen, ed., Echoes of the Intifada: Regional Repercussions of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), 176.
36. Middle East Economic Digest, November 18, 1988, 4–5, and February 24, 1989, 2–3.
37. Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report: Jordan 3 (1989), 12–13.
38. Andoni, “Jordan,” 176.
39. Amman Television Service, April 14, 1989
40. Amman Domestic Service, July 24, 1989 (FBIS-NES)
41. Jordan Times, June 14, 1989, 6
42. Central Bank of Jordan, Twenty-Sixth Annual Report 1989, 68–73.
43. Radio Monte Carlo, April 19–20, 1989 (FBIS-NES); Lamis Andoni, “The Five Days That Shook Jordan,” Middle East International, April 28, 1989, 3-4; and Middle East Times, June 6–12, 1989, 4.
44. Amman Television Service, April 22, 1989 (FBIS-NES), Middle East Reporter, April 29, 1989, 8. The prince appeared to display particular annoyance with the political role assumed by Jordan’s professional associations.
45. Text of King Husayn’s royal designation letter to Sharif Zayd bin Shakir, April 27, 1989.
46. Jordan Times, May 15, 1989 (FBIS-NES). Some close to the regime spoke at this time of a model similar to that adopted by Anwar al-Sadat in Egypt with his dissolution of the Arab Socialist Union into three official platforms—an official governing centrist party, with official “loyal oppositions” to the left and right (interviews, Amman, July 1989).
47. Interview with King Husayn, al-Ra‘y, July 17, 1989, 6 (FBIS-NES). Article 18E of the law allowed the security services to bar candidates from running, while other provisions restricted public meetings and press access.
48. Lamis Andoni, “Poor Prognosis,” Middle East International, June 9, 1989, 10–11, and Jordan Times, August 5, 1989, 1.
49. Interview with Finance Minister Basil Jardanah and Central Bank of Jordan governor Muhammad Sa’id al-Nabulsi, Amman Domestic Service, July 24, 1989 (FBIS-NES), and Jordan Times, July 25, 1989, 1.
50. This point was made explicitly by one former prime minister and several close advisors to the King, interviewed in Amman in July-August 1989. See also New York Times, October 26, 1989, A10.
51. Jordan Times, August 17–18, 1989.
52. Louis-Jean Duclos, “Les eléctions législatives en Jordanie,” Maghreb-Machrek 129 [1990], 52–53, 74–75
53. Kamel S. Abu Jaber and Schirin H. Fathi, “The 1989 Jordanian Parliamentary Elections,” Orient 31 [1990], 72–74).
54. Abu Jaber and Fathi, “The 1989 Jordanian Parliamentary Elections,” 83-93
55. Duclos, “Les élections législatives en Jordanie,” 75;
56. Wafa Amr, “Palestinian Participation in Jordan’s Parliamentary Elections,” The Return 2 (1990), 21. Between nine and twelve of the newly elected members were of Palestinian origin.
57. See, for example, Alfred Stepan, “Paths towards Redemocratization: Theoretical and Comparative Considerations,” and Robert Kaufman, “Liberalization and Redemocratization in South America: Perspectives from the 1970s,” in O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, part 3, 64–84, 90-93; part 4, 15–21.
58. Karen L. Remmer, “The Politics of Economic Stabilization: IMF Standby Programs in Latin America, 1954-1984,” Comparative Politics 19 (1986), 9–10
59. Henry Bienen and Mark Gersovitz, “Economic Stabilization, Conditionality, and Political Stability,” International Organization 39 (1985), 729–54.
60. Henry Bienen and Mark Gersovitz, “Consumer Subsidy Cuts, Violence, and Political Stability,” Comparative Politics 19 (1986), 25–44.
61. John Waterbury, “The Political Management of Economic Adjustment and Reform,” in Joan M. Nelson et al., Fragile Coalitions: The Politics of Economic Adjustment (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1989).
62. Aristotle, The Politics, book 6, chap. 5. For more contemporary evaluations of this argument
63. B. K. Nehru, “Western Democracy and the Third World,” Third World Quarterly 1 (1979), 53–70
64. Samuel Huntington, “Will More Countries Become Democratic?” Political Science Quarterly 99 (1984), 198–202.
65. Rachid Tlemcani and William Hansen, “Development and the State in Post-Colonial Algeria,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 24/1-2 (1989) 124-130
66. Rachid Tlemçani, “Chadli’s Perestroika,” Middle East Report 163 (1990), 14-18;
67. Arun Kapil, “Algeria’s Elections Show Islamist Strength,” Middle East Report 166(1990) 31–36.
68. Palestinians also report increasing difficulties securing work permits or renewals throughout the Gulf; as a result, up to 34,000 a month returned to Jordan during the summer of 1991 (New York Times, September 19, 1991, A18).
69. On the regional political and economic repercussions of the Gulf crisis, see also Rex Brynen and Paul Noble “The Gulf Crisis and the Arab State System: A New Regional Order?” Arab Studies Quarterly 13 (1991), 126–30.