Jordan is perhaps less violently exposed to the regional changes taking place around it than say Lebanon. But make no mistake; regional events are already shaping Jordan’s internal affairs in a profound way.
Jordanian citizens might have been more adaptable to understanding the rationale behind price rises if they were coupled with an effort to achieve a more transparent and just form of governance.
While Chinese petitioners and dissidents hold protest rallies every day in defiance of unaccountable officials, few of them question the necessity of upholding a strong executive authority. Thoughts on revolution and reform by a Chinese student in Cairo.
The dismantling of four governments (including one which held much hope for political reform under Awn Khasawneh) has left Jordanians seething. They now view their goodwill as having been used to prolong the status quo rather than initiate political reform.
In Jordan, Iraqi refugees are commonly referred to as ‘brothers’ yet at the same time also suffer a variety of social stigmas. But do Ali and his family have a better chance, having worked for the coalition forces?
If the Gulf Cooperation Council wanted to support democracy and stability, they would have invested in Tunisia and Egypt. Instead, they are investing in regimes that mimic their own Umayyad model of governance.
The Arab uprisings of 2011 can be understood as the striving for a new social contract founded on constitutional and democratic principles, says Ayman Ayoub.
The Salafi-jihadist movement is losing its recruitment pool in the Arab world. Its latest strategies look elsewhere, and the death of Osama Bin Laden will not affect these plans.
The uprisings sweeping across the Middle East portend a political transformation as significant as those of 1989. The economic stagnation of the region, the failures of corrupt and repressive autocratic regimes, conjoined with a disenchanted youthful population wired together as never before, have
