The strategies of the Jordanian regime in the process of the Arab Spring: A multi-level analysis

This thesis discusses the regime survival strategies of the Jordanian regime during the Arab Spring process, an unexpected development that deeply influenced the current political order in the region. As part of such scrutiny, in addition to a detailed review of the existing literature and secondary sources, a six-months-long fieldwork was done in Jordan between 2012 and 2014, in the scope of which interviews and a detailed archive research were conducted. Based on the collected data and on the model developed from the regime survival literature, in this study, the Jordanian Regime's survival strategies have been analyzed in three levels: national, regional and international. Such multi-level analysis was needed because of the fact that the regime developed strategies to deal with the regime- shattering developments in domestic politics not only in national level, but also in regional and international levels based on cooperation with regional and global actors. This shows that the regime was needed to be survived not only by the Jordanian government, but also by the regional and international actors. The main enquiry of this research, which explains the strategies built on this mutual 'dependency', is that what kind of strategies have the regime developed to maintain its survival? It is important to answer such a question because of the fact that in the literature, while there are plenty of studies explaining the developments generated the regime-shattering in the Arab Spring process, the question of 'why some regimes survived while others collapsing' mostly remained unanswered. In order to contribute to the answering of this question, this study explains how the regime in Jordan has survived, in addition to providing some reflections on the survival strategies of weak autocracies. This study on regime survival has several findings, some of which are, firstly, the Jordanian regime, as an economically weak state, in order to gain the consent of the public, introduced several reforms and hesitated to use power during the uprisings as opposed to other countries in the region. Secondly, the regime abstained from conflicting with the regional countries as much as possible; this was the case also in its relations with its rival countries in the region. Finally, the regime remained neutral to the regional disputes, by which it secured to gain the support of global powers.