The monarchy between historical legitimacy and complex challenges: How did Jordan survive the Arab Spring

In 2011 a series of demonstrations came across many Arab countries like a snowball in what was known as the wave of the Arab Spring. Starting in Tunis, then Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Jordan followed. This wave has led to democratic transition in Tunis and Egypt in the very early months of the demonstrations, and a civil war and a dramatic state failure in Syria, Yemen, and Libya. However, Jordan's spring seemed to be less dramatic. No absolute violence happened nor did Muslima regime change occur. What Jordan faced was putting it in the loop of the project of democratization that had started in 1989 and yet did not come into the light. In this paper, I show the roots of the state establishment in Jordan and highlight the events that shaped the legitimacy of the monarchy and then analyze the tools and strategies the monarchy followed to sustain its legitimacy and preserve its stability, from the early establishment of the state to the Arab Spring. Finally, this paper argues that the monarchy in Jordan can neither be considered democratic or authoritarian, rather it maneuvers between multiple strategies and seized opportunities to remain stable in the region and legitimate in the state. This paper demonstrates the complexity of Jordanian politics on the international and regional levels that influences its internal politics. This paper takes the historical process method and refers to Max Weber and Micheal Mann to address the concepts of legitimacy and state power in the case of Jordan within a proper theoretical context.