Pub Date : 2021-06-09DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13031234
Chahd Bahri, J. Völkel
This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Tunisia’s parliament has undergone a remarkable internal transformation process since 2011, from a formerly mostly irrelevant institution to an influential locus of policy-making. This successful progress notwithstanding, the parliament’s transformation to a democratic assembly has not been fully concluded yet. A main challenge is that the legislature still shows a number of characteristics of an “authoritarian parliament”: besides a lack of staff and financial resources, the continuous dominance of personal kinship over institutionalized power structures remains particularly problematic.While private networks of individual decision-makers were perceived as crucial for Tunisia’s stability during the turbulent post-revolution years, they concomitantly contain the risk for a resurrection of former authoritarian structures. The article thus traces the Tunisian parliament’s major transformation steps from a former irrelevant legislature to a consolidated, influential assembly, and points out the still existing challenges.
{"title":"A Struggle for Institutionalization: the Tunisian Assemblée des Répresentants du Peuple and the Dominance of Consensus-Oriented Politics","authors":"Chahd Bahri, J. Völkel","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13031234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13031234","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Tunisia’s parliament has undergone a remarkable internal transformation process since 2011, from a formerly mostly irrelevant institution to an influential locus of policy-making. This successful progress notwithstanding, the parliament’s transformation to a democratic assembly has not been fully concluded yet. A main challenge is that the legislature still shows a number of characteristics of an “authoritarian parliament”: besides a lack of staff and financial resources, the continuous dominance of personal kinship over institutionalized power structures remains particularly problematic.While private networks of individual decision-makers were perceived as crucial for Tunisia’s stability during the turbulent post-revolution years, they concomitantly contain the risk for a resurrection of former authoritarian structures. The article thus traces the Tunisian parliament’s major transformation steps from a former irrelevant legislature to a consolidated, influential assembly, and points out the still existing challenges.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45172907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-09DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13031240
Rainer Grote
Part of a special issue devoted to the role of parliaments in contemporary Arab politics, this article gives an oversight of the evolution of the constitutional rules governing the status and powers of Arab parliamentary assemblies following the “Arab spring” and during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Parliaments have traditionally played a marginal role in Arab constitutional theory and practice. Although the strengthening of the role and powers of parliaments and a rebalancing of the executive-legislative relations in favour of the latter featured prominently in the reform agendas emerging from the protest movements of the “Arab spring,” these movements proved unable to produce lasting change. The reforms have either been rolled back by oppressive governments or given way to a political pactice of renewed presidential dominance which diverges considerably from the initial aspirations of the reformers. The highly unfavourable conditions existing in most Arab countries – with internally divided democratic reform movements, entrenched military, and political elites determined to resist genuine democratic change with all means available and powerful external actors supporting the domestic status quo – are likely to ensure that parliaments will remain confined to a largely ornamental role in Arab politics in the foreseeable future.
{"title":"Parliaments in the MENA Region: Between Timid Reform and Regression. A Comparative Survey","authors":"Rainer Grote","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13031240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13031240","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Part of a special issue devoted to the role of parliaments in contemporary Arab politics, this article gives an oversight of the evolution of the constitutional rules governing the status and powers of Arab parliamentary assemblies following the “Arab spring” and during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Parliaments have traditionally played a marginal role in Arab constitutional theory and practice. Although the strengthening of the role and powers of parliaments and a rebalancing of the executive-legislative relations in favour of the latter featured prominently in the reform agendas emerging from the protest movements of the “Arab spring,” these movements proved unable to produce lasting change. The reforms have either been rolled back by oppressive governments or given way to a political pactice of renewed presidential dominance which diverges considerably from the initial aspirations of the reformers. The highly unfavourable conditions existing in most Arab countries – with internally divided democratic reform movements, entrenched military, and political elites determined to resist genuine democratic change with all means available and powerful external actors supporting the domestic status quo – are likely to ensure that parliaments will remain confined to a largely ornamental role in Arab politics in the foreseeable future.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45438852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-31DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13031265
Mahmoud M. Dodeen
This article explores the position of the successive executive powers that have ruled over the occupied Palestinian territory toward the right of association, analyzing the regulations and practical measures they introduced. The governance of these authorities was undemocratic, resulting in abuses of legislative power with a view to constraining the right to assembly and to dominating ngo s, starting with incorporation and ending with dissolution. Despite an ongoing struggle for operational independence, ngo s have been under the control of the Palestinian ruling political parties in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 2007. Throughout this period, elected formal oversight bodies have been lacking. While Fatah monopolizes government of the West Bank, Hamas takes exclusive possession of the administration of the Gaza Strip; each party has fought against the ngo s aligned with its rival. The ruling regimes have also exploited shortfalls and gaps in some regulations in order to undermine and weaken the role of ngo s in issues of public concern.
{"title":"Using Law as an Instrument of Domination and Violating the Right of Assembly: The Story behind the Palestinian NGOs’ Quest for Independence","authors":"Mahmoud M. Dodeen","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13031265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13031265","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores the position of the successive executive powers that have ruled over the occupied Palestinian territory toward the right of association, analyzing the regulations and practical measures they introduced. The governance of these authorities was undemocratic, resulting in abuses of legislative power with a view to constraining the right to assembly and to dominating ngo s, starting with incorporation and ending with dissolution. Despite an ongoing struggle for operational independence, ngo s have been under the control of the Palestinian ruling political parties in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 2007. Throughout this period, elected formal oversight bodies have been lacking. While Fatah monopolizes government of the West Bank, Hamas takes exclusive possession of the administration of the Gaza Strip; each party has fought against the ngo s aligned with its rival. The ruling regimes have also exploited shortfalls and gaps in some regulations in order to undermine and weaken the role of ngo s in issues of public concern.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-28"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45124457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-04DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13010003
Chiara Loschi
Based on interviews with young Libyan professionals carried out between 2017 and 2018, this paper examines their role as agenda-setters in international organizations operating in their country since 2011. The growing foreign demand for local expertise after the fall of the old regime was met mostly by the young activists who had helped organize the 2011 uprisings. For foreign organizations, Libyan youth have come to embody brokers, fixers, go-betweens, and persons-in-between, becoming key supporting actors in international project implementation. Despite the opportunities seemingly afforded by the collapse of the old regime, this paper shows that Libyan youth, torn between desires for political change and professional advancement, have struggled to influence the agendas of international organizations, leading to feelings of disenfranchisement. The transformative capacity of international projects is thus often limited by this new class of young, globalized elites who are disengaged from the local needs and realities facing Libyan civil society.
{"title":"Youth as Agenda-Setters between Donors and Beneficiaries: The Limited Role of Libyan Youth after 2011","authors":"Chiara Loschi","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13010003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Based on interviews with young Libyan professionals carried out between 2017 and 2018, this paper examines their role as agenda-setters in international organizations operating in their country since 2011. The growing foreign demand for local expertise after the fall of the old regime was met mostly by the young activists who had helped organize the 2011 uprisings. For foreign organizations, Libyan youth have come to embody brokers, fixers, go-betweens, and persons-in-between, becoming key supporting actors in international project implementation. Despite the opportunities seemingly afforded by the collapse of the old regime, this paper shows that Libyan youth, torn between desires for political change and professional advancement, have struggled to influence the agendas of international organizations, leading to feelings of disenfranchisement. The transformative capacity of international projects is thus often limited by this new class of young, globalized elites who are disengaged from the local needs and realities facing Libyan civil society.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":"13 1","pages":"49-71"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44306680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-04DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13010002
Meir Hatina
Many studies have been devoted to the features of global jihad (also known as Salafi jihadism), its historical development, its difference from other Salafi groups, or its struggles with ideological rivals. Little emphasis, however, has been given to global jihadists’ ideological genealogy, and hence to locating them in a comparative perspective. How did they commemorate their formative heroes, such as the medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyya and mid-twentieth century ideologues, such as Sayyid Qutb, Abu al-Aʿla al-Mawdudi, ʿAbd al-Salam Faraj, Shukri Mustafaʾ, Marwan Hadid or Saʿid Hawwa? Were these figures still perceived as cultural heroes, or were they shunned? Did their writings continue to provide sources of inspiration, or were they replaced by new manifestos? An in-depth discussion of these questions, based on a textual analysis of jihadi sources, may shed further light on global jihadists’ ideological evolution and self-perceptions. It will provide an additional prism for analyzing modern Sunni militancy, and scrutinize the extent its protagonists’ treatises match past traditions or, alternatively, deviate from them in favor of cultivated traditions, thus advancing a dissident agenda.
{"title":"Remembering Our Heroes: Global Jihad’s Militancy in a Comparative Perspective","authors":"Meir Hatina","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13010002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Many studies have been devoted to the features of global jihad (also known as Salafi jihadism), its historical development, its difference from other Salafi groups, or its struggles with ideological rivals. Little emphasis, however, has been given to global jihadists’ ideological genealogy, and hence to locating them in a comparative perspective. How did they commemorate their formative heroes, such as the medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyya and mid-twentieth century ideologues, such as Sayyid Qutb, Abu al-Aʿla al-Mawdudi, ʿAbd al-Salam Faraj, Shukri Mustafaʾ, Marwan Hadid or Saʿid Hawwa? Were these figures still perceived as cultural heroes, or were they shunned? Did their writings continue to provide sources of inspiration, or were they replaced by new manifestos? An in-depth discussion of these questions, based on a textual analysis of jihadi sources, may shed further light on global jihadists’ ideological evolution and self-perceptions. It will provide an additional prism for analyzing modern Sunni militancy, and scrutinize the extent its protagonists’ treatises match past traditions or, alternatively, deviate from them in favor of cultivated traditions, thus advancing a dissident agenda.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":"13 1","pages":"98-124"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47820211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-04DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13010005
Jacob Mundy
The guiding concept for this special journal section is to explore the increasing normalization of Libya’s post-2011 “transition” and its reification into a new social, juridical and economic status quo. Amid constant news reports and think tank analyses of chaotic armed conflict, political fragmentation, and even wholesale “state failure,” we wanted to highlight the extent to which this protracted interregnum—between the collapse of Mu‘ammar al-Gaddafi’s decrepit Jamahiriyyah system in 2011 and the failure of any political coalition to achieve a new hegemonic order since then—can no longer be considered just that, an interregnum. So what is Libya’s new normal, and how do the contributions here attempt to account for it? In the wake of the 2011 uprisings across Northern Africa and Southwest Asia, it has become commonplace to invoke Gramsci’s now famous theorization of crisis from the Prison Notebooks as historical moments in which the old order can no longer be sustained but whose replacement cannot be established either. In the case of Libya, the crisis results from the entanglement of these two processes, and, in many ways, it has come to represent the new order itself. This is precisely where we can situate Emad Badi’s contribution to this collection. On the one hand, he historically situates Libya’s recent decade of “morbid symptoms”—to continue to invoke Gramsci—in the structures and tactics of rule that marked the Gaddafi regime’s centralized forty-two year grip on power (1969–2011). On the other hand, he also evaluates European theories of the state against these historical and contemporary realities. He finds them unable to account for the forms of order and disorder, and the ways in which governmental forms are established and challenged, in the Libyan context.
{"title":"Libya: Lost in Transition","authors":"Jacob Mundy","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13010005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13010005","url":null,"abstract":"The guiding concept for this special journal section is to explore the increasing normalization of Libya’s post-2011 “transition” and its reification into a new social, juridical and economic status quo. Amid constant news reports and think tank analyses of chaotic armed conflict, political fragmentation, and even wholesale “state failure,” we wanted to highlight the extent to which this protracted interregnum—between the collapse of Mu‘ammar al-Gaddafi’s decrepit Jamahiriyyah system in 2011 and the failure of any political coalition to achieve a new hegemonic order since then—can no longer be considered just that, an interregnum. So what is Libya’s new normal, and how do the contributions here attempt to account for it? In the wake of the 2011 uprisings across Northern Africa and Southwest Asia, it has become commonplace to invoke Gramsci’s now famous theorization of crisis from the Prison Notebooks as historical moments in which the old order can no longer be sustained but whose replacement cannot be established either. In the case of Libya, the crisis results from the entanglement of these two processes, and, in many ways, it has come to represent the new order itself. This is precisely where we can situate Emad Badi’s contribution to this collection. On the one hand, he historically situates Libya’s recent decade of “morbid symptoms”—to continue to invoke Gramsci—in the structures and tactics of rule that marked the Gaddafi regime’s centralized forty-two year grip on power (1969–2011). On the other hand, he also evaluates European theories of the state against these historical and contemporary realities. He finds them unable to account for the forms of order and disorder, and the ways in which governmental forms are established and challenged, in the Libyan context.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46011780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-04DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13010001
Emadeddin Badi
This paper explores the relationships between the Libyan state and society, and the ways in which these dynamics affected the subsequent civil wars in 2011 and onwards. Beyond the commonly-studied impact of oil and state rentierism, this paper demonstrates that the enduring centralization of the state, Gaddafi’s dystopian governance system, the socio-economic and political cultures pre-2011, and the interplay between local systems of legitimacy and central authority have played an underappreciated role in the contemporary Libyan landscape. The continuities and discontinuities of order that defined and characterized the Libyan state before and after 2011 are thus dissected. An exploration of the appositeness of Eurocentric theories of statehood to the Libyan landscape unveils the pillars of legitimacy that defined Libyan statehood pre-Gaddafi. This sheds light both on how the Gaddafi regime sought to control society by often manipulating these pillars and on the ways in which Libyan society either directly and indirectly resisted his rule or rested in complacency. This covert resistance, which turned overt, widespread, and violent in 2011, paved the way for a discursive mutation of “tribalism.” This notion morphed from one of a group behavioral binding mechanism tied to blood lineage into one underpinned by notions of solidarity that override kinship. This analysis in turn elucidates the precarity of the Libyan state and explains the subsequent turmoil in the country post-2011, characterized notably by the emergence of armed non-state actors. A key discontinuity identified is in the realm of foreign influencers that have exploited long-standing domestic grievances and weaponized Libya’s traditional pillars of legitimacy, thus tearing at its society’s social fabric.
{"title":"Of Conflict and Collapse: Rethinking State Formation in Post-Gaddafi Libya","authors":"Emadeddin Badi","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13010001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper explores the relationships between the Libyan state and society, and the ways in which these dynamics affected the subsequent civil wars in 2011 and onwards. Beyond the commonly-studied impact of oil and state rentierism, this paper demonstrates that the enduring centralization of the state, Gaddafi’s dystopian governance system, the socio-economic and political cultures pre-2011, and the interplay between local systems of legitimacy and central authority have played an underappreciated role in the contemporary Libyan landscape. The continuities and discontinuities of order that defined and characterized the Libyan state before and after 2011 are thus dissected. An exploration of the appositeness of Eurocentric theories of statehood to the Libyan landscape unveils the pillars of legitimacy that defined Libyan statehood pre-Gaddafi. This sheds light both on how the Gaddafi regime sought to control society by often manipulating these pillars and on the ways in which Libyan society either directly and indirectly resisted his rule or rested in complacency. This covert resistance, which turned overt, widespread, and violent in 2011, paved the way for a discursive mutation of “tribalism.” This notion morphed from one of a group behavioral binding mechanism tied to blood lineage into one underpinned by notions of solidarity that override kinship. This analysis in turn elucidates the precarity of the Libyan state and explains the subsequent turmoil in the country post-2011, characterized notably by the emergence of armed non-state actors. A key discontinuity identified is in the realm of foreign influencers that have exploited long-standing domestic grievances and weaponized Libya’s traditional pillars of legitimacy, thus tearing at its society’s social fabric.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":"13 1","pages":"22-48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48704207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-04DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13010004
A. Houdret
This paper analyzes how development cooperation can actively support democratic governance through cooperation in the water sector. To answer this question, we develop an analytical approach based on democratization research and on water governance research. We tested the approach in three donor-supported water projects in Morocco and carried out over seventy interviews with key stakeholders. Our findings show (a) key factors influencing the scope for external support for democratic governance in the water sector, (b) potential negative effects of the support when local elites grasp new resources, and (c) unintended positive spill-over effects of water projects on democratic governance within and beyond the sector (for instance, strengthening formerly marginalized groups). As these empirical findings suggest, there is a potentially large scope of action for supporting democratic governance through water sector cooperation. We therefore highlight the need for more analytical and empirical research on causal interlinkages between these two fields of intervention.
{"title":"How Can Water Sector Cooperation Support Democratic Governance? Insights from Morocco","authors":"A. Houdret","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13010004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper analyzes how development cooperation can actively support democratic governance through cooperation in the water sector. To answer this question, we develop an analytical approach based on democratization research and on water governance research. We tested the approach in three donor-supported water projects in Morocco and carried out over seventy interviews with key stakeholders.\u0000Our findings show (a) key factors influencing the scope for external support for democratic governance in the water sector, (b) potential negative effects of the support when local elites grasp new resources, and (c) unintended positive spill-over effects of water projects on democratic governance within and beyond the sector (for instance, strengthening formerly marginalized groups). As these empirical findings suggest, there is a potentially large scope of action for supporting democratic governance through water sector cooperation. We therefore highlight the need for more analytical and empirical research on causal interlinkages between these two fields of intervention.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47165989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-22DOI: 10.1163/18763375-13030001
E. Karmel
Jordan introduced legislation in 2015 to initiate a process of decentralization. Both the decision to decentralize as well as the form of decentralization that Jordan ultimately pursued have thus far been explained as regime efforts to reinforce its position and that of its clientelist base. While acknowledging that Jordan’s decision to decentralize was driven by broader political dynamics (including patron-clientelism), the article questions the extent to which these dynamics can account for the actual design of Jordan’s decentralization reforms. Through a detailed examination of the process through which the 2015 Decentralization Law was passed, the article argues that the Law was not only a result of patron-client politics, but also the product of a complex policy process. Drawing on this close-range investigation of the policy process leading to the Law, the article outlines some of the key parameters within which Jordanian policy is made, thereby contributing to the burgeoning literature that calls for policy to be brought into the study of authoritarian regimes.
{"title":"Designing Decentralization in Jordan: Locating the Policy among the Politics","authors":"E. Karmel","doi":"10.1163/18763375-13030001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-13030001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Jordan introduced legislation in 2015 to initiate a process of decentralization. Both the decision to decentralize as well as the form of decentralization that Jordan ultimately pursued have thus far been explained as regime efforts to reinforce its position and that of its clientelist base. While acknowledging that Jordan’s decision to decentralize was driven by broader political dynamics (including patron-clientelism), the article questions the extent to which these dynamics can account for the actual design of Jordan’s decentralization reforms. Through a detailed examination of the process through which the 2015 Decentralization Law was passed, the article argues that the Law was not only a result of patron-client politics, but also the product of a complex policy process. Drawing on this close-range investigation of the policy process leading to the Law, the article outlines some of the key parameters within which Jordanian policy is made, thereby contributing to the burgeoning literature that calls for policy to be brought into the study of authoritarian regimes.","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-30"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45868435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-17DOI: 10.1163/18763375-12030001
Janine A. Clark
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"Janine A. Clark","doi":"10.1163/18763375-12030001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-12030001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43500,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Law and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46974750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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