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The State of Jordanian Women's Organizations—Five Years Beyond

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The State of Jordanian Women's Organizations—Five Years Beyond www.ssoar.info The State of Jordanian Women's Organizations - Five Years Beyond the Arab Spring Ferguson, Peter A. Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Ferguson, P. A. (2017). The State of Jordanian Women's Organizations - Five Years Beyond the Arab Spring. Politics and Governance, 5(2), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v5i2.762 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY Lizenz (Namensnennung) zur This document is made available under a CC BY Licence Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden (Attribution). For more Information see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de Diese Version ist zitierbar unter / This version is citable under: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-55113-9 Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 59–68 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v5i2.762 Article The State of Jordanian Women’s Organizations—Five Years Beyond the Arab Spring Peter A. Ferguson Department of Political Science, Western University, London, N6A 5C2, Canada; E-Mail: [email protected] Submitted: 9 September 2016 | Accepted: 25 October 2016 | Published: 28 April 2017 Abstract This paper explores the failure of women’s organizations to effect the improvement of the status of Jordanian women during the Arab Spring. Through an examination of the regime’s political liberalization strategy, leadership failures within women’s organizations, and international donor influence on programmatic focus, the underlying explanation for this fail- ure is found to be rooted in the historical depoliticization of women in Jordan. This is tested in the context of the Arab Spring through an analysis of the results of popular protests, proposed electoral law reforms, and efforts to amend the Jordanian constitution. The paper draws in part on a large collection of interviews and a focus group conducted in Jor- dan during the spring/summer of 2012, as well as analysis of primary documents from the government and a variety of women’s organizations in Jordan. Keywords Arab Spring; democratization; Jordan; women Issue This article is part of a multidisciplinary issue of Politics and Governance, edited by Christian Haerpfer (University of Vienna, Austria) and Kseniya Kizilova (Institute for Comparative Survey Research, Austria). © 2017 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction place’ in the Tunisian demonstrations that sparked the Arab Spring, it was a video blog post by a woman, Asmaa During the first weeks of the Arab Spring, democrats Mahfouz, which initially called on Egyptians to protest thought hopefully of a ‘fourth wave’ of democratization in Tahrir Square on January 25. Likewise, women played sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa. In- a central role in the initial protests against Muammar deed, initially, this potential wave seemed poised to in- Qaddafi in western Libya. Tawakkul Karman was awarded crease the rights of tremendous numbers of previously the Nobel Peace Prize for her role in protests in Yemen. disenfranchised people. The Tunisian regime quickly Prospects of democracy were accompanied by hopes withdrew from power and work began on facilitating a that the Arab Spring would usher in unique political op- transition to democracy. In Egypt, protests were more portunities for positive social change and improvements violent but shortly after the military chose not to crack to the status of women in the region. down on demonstrators, the Mubarak regime was swept In the end, these hopes proved to be overly opti- from power. Protest in both countries included great mistic. There is no doubt that the protests produced numbers of women and were supported by women’s or- results. Political upheaval in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and ganizations. Some in the western media began to ques- Yemen resulted in the removal of long-standing leaders tion if these events would lead to an ‘Arab Spring for from power. However the hopes of an enduring wave of Women’. Referencing the ‘striking role of women in the democracy sweeping across North Africa and the Middle protests sweeping the Arab world’ it was noted that East quickly began to fade. Civil war broke out in Syria and women were at ‘the forefront of those protests’ (Cole & democratic protests were put down in countries rang- Cole, 2011, p. 1). Not only did women have a ‘significant ing from Yemen to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates. Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 59–68 59 Only in Tunisia does it appear that democracy has be- over the country. This approach offers the potential for gun to take root. So, is the same thing true when we regime survival by venting opposition pressure usually turn from democracy to the ‘Arab Spring for Women?’ through the use of less force than the repression strat- Did the Arab Spring improve the status of women? The egy. The difficulty is that regimes undertaking political consensus seems to be no; or as Ashwath Komath (2014) liberalization can lose control of the reform process and put it ‘a resounding no’. Looking at the broader MENA thus sow the seeds of their own demise. In this event, region, Abdalhadi Alijla (2015) contends that the dream regimes can choose to further capitulate or attempt to of women being ‘effective participants in political, eco- undertake a cycle of repression. nomic and social life in the post-Arab Spring countries Jordan has a long history of employing both ap- has been crushed’. Not only have the prosepcts for im- proaches. Since the 1950s, the country has witnessed provement failed to materialize, but Haifa Abu Ghazaleh a number of cycles of liberalization and severe politi- (2016) argues for many it has gotten worse: ‘The status cal repression (Rath, 1994, p. 530). Early on, the regime of women has not improved in most Arab Spring coun- mainly employed naked repression relying on ‘harsh tries. Their social, economic, and political demands have crackdowns, shuttered institutions, and other highly vis- not been fulfilled; they have instead been dragged by ter- ible forms of royal domination’ (Yom, 2009, p. 152). At rorist groups into battlefields in several countries, thus the end of the Cold War, when confronted with a cri- becoming enslaved, widowed, or bereaved’. sis potentially threatening the existence of the regime, As with the wider MENA region, the Arab Spring of- Jordan undertook a policy of political liberalization as ‘a fered initial hopes for real, sustained change and im- regime survival strategy of the monarchy’ (Koprulu, 2012, provements in the status of women in Jordan. Unfortu- p. 75). However, once initiated, it can prove difficult to nately, the answer in Jordan is also no. In an attempt to completely control change. In this case, the policy ‘initi- understand the answer, this paper addresses the ques- ated a political and liberalization process that included tion: why were women’s organizations unable to effect the revival of elections and parliamentary life’ as well the improvement of the status of Jordanian women dur- as ‘the lifting of martial law, the legalization of politi- ing the Arab Spring? Drawing on a wide range of view- cal parties, loosening of restrictions on the media, and points from interviews conducted with people involved six rounds of national parliamentary elections (in 1989, in women’s organizations in Jordan, three main themes 1993 ,1997, 2003, 2007, and 2010)’ (Ryan, 2011, p. 370). emerged. First, the use of political liberalization as a tool Despite these seemingly democratic outcomes, it is im- for regime survival resulted in a continuation of the de- portant to remember that this was a strategy employed politicization of Jordanian women and women’s organiza- by an authoritarian state in order to maintain a tight grip tion, undercutting their ability to achieve lasting change. on power (Yom, 2009, p. 370). Second, there was a failure of leadership. The profes- Thus, political reforms were introduced to vent oppo- sionalization of leadership in Jordanian women’s orga- sition pressure as part of ‘a state strategy to maintain the nizations undermined efforts to maintain programmatic dominant political order’ (Robinson, 1998, p. 389). Side focus and to expand the base of the women’s move- by side with reforms was an effort to keep civilians from ment. Third, the reliance on funding from international organizing political opposition and effective public en- donors impaired the ability of women’s organizations gagement by employing reminders of the consequences in Jordan to independently identify programmatic focus of contesting state power (Wiktorowicz, 2000, p. 430). and undercut their domestic support. This study refer- The effect of the measures specifically aimed at Jor- ences (see Annex) a variety of material including: 40 in- danian associational life were apparent; as formal citi- terviews conducted in Jordan (May to July 2012); a focus zen structures for organizing were disbanded, liberaliza- group attended by field workers in Jordanian NGOs; pri- tion resulted in societal depoliticization (Robinson, 1998, mary source material such as Jordanian government doc- p. 390). These effects were felt within women’s organi- uments and NGO advocacy materials; and, normal aca- zations. As a prominent NGO director noted during the demic secondary material. interview: ‘It caused a culture of fear that we cannot in- tegrate into political life...(and) the legacy has remained’ 2. Political Liberalization Effects (Interview A, 2012).1 The implications for the broader civil society are just Political liberalization is employed as a theoretical frame- as important. There was little space from which a pop- work for understanding the state of Jordanian women’s ulist social movement with an autonomous stance and organizations.
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