Jordan and the Arab Spring: Challenges and Opportunities

Year 2014, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, 169 - 194, 01.01.2014

Nuri Yeşilyurt

Abstract

This article aims to make a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of the Arab Spring on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In particular, it tackles with the question of how the Hashemite regime could survive the Arab Spring. Furthermore, it aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate about the resilience of Arab monarchies by trying to find out if the survival of the Hashemite monarchy during the Arab Spring has more to do with factors endogenous to the regime or exogenous to it. After analysing the main challenges and opportunities that the Arab Spring created for Jordan, this article argues that challenges that the Hashemite regime faced during this period either disappeared or are outbalanced by the opportunities it enjoyed, and these opportunities originated from both exogenous and endogenous factors

Keywords

Jordan, Arab Spring, King Abdullah II, Hashemites, Arab monarchies.

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