Frozen Political Liberalization in Jordan: The Consequences for Democracy
Creator
Kamrava, Mehran
Abstract
Prompted by serious economic difficulties, in 1989 the Jordanian government launched a series of political liberalization measures aimed at rejuvenating the country's parliament and party politics, and restoring freedom to the media. Despite much initial enthusiasm, the liberalization process has become frozen and there have been few substantive moves toward a meaningful transition to democracy. Two developments have combined to result in this democratization freeze. One is the reluctance of the state to give up many of its powers in relation to the forces of civil society. A second is the inability of professional associations and the emerging parliamentary opposition bloc to formulate and institute viable links within themselves and with other social actors in an attempt to pressure the monarchy for more political concessions. The hybrid, semi‐democratic, absolutist monarchy that has emerged in the process has enhanced its popular legitimacy by adopting certain democratic trappings, which, in the short run at least, appear detrimental to a more meaningful transition to democratic rule.
Permanent Link
http://hdl.handle.net/10822/711173External Link
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13510349808403551Date Published
2014-10-21Rights
This item is currently unavailable in DigitalGeorgetown due to copyright restrictions by the publisher.
Type
Is Part Of
Democratization, 5(1)
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Collections
Metadata
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