The Islamic Action Front and the Jordanian Process of Political Liberlisation: A Collaborative or Competitive Relationship?

Among the multiple attempts to explain the resilience of authoritarianism in the Arab world, the theories related to the rentier nature of many Arab states, based on political economy assumptions, furnish an interesting perspective. Their main starting point is the “no taxation without representation” theory, according to which an external source of revenue allows the regime to seek legitimacy outside of the representation channels orienting and determining its distribution and its allocation on the basis of the production. The rentierstate framework of analysis is also applied in order to explain the openness of the political liberalisation process started in 1989 through the free Parliamentarian elections. Rex Brynen explains the Jordanian case using this theory, and arguing that the collapse of external revenue experienced in the 80's forced the regime to open the system in order to seek new sources of legitimacy for the application of the economic measures necessary to recover from the crisis and to stabilise the balance of payment debt. The democratisation can be thus seen as a result of a “crisis of Jordanian neo-patrimonialism engendered by the decline of Jordan's traditional semi-rentier economy”. In a way, according to this theory, the economic liberalisation following the revenue crisis also implied automatically political liberalisation; this process is based on the need to involve in a new political pact the political constituencies traditionally a source of legitimacy for the monarchy and beneficiaries of the privileges coming from revenue distribution. It was impossible to implement the difficult economic adjustment programs required from the liberalisation process without opening the system and involving people in the decision-making process.
The 1989 riots in the south further confirmed this necessity, being in addition carried out by the tribal component, the traditional basis of monarchical support. As Crown Prince Hassan said in the aftermath of the decision to call for elections: “Jordan could not sustain the painful medicine of economic stabilisation without political liberalisation”.