Artur Malantowicz * e-ISSN 2449-8645 HEMISPHERES No. 32, 2017 Democracy or Stability? Everlasting Dilemma of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Abstract So far Jordan has witnessed only minor reforms, and the word “democracy” has been used as a façade for the authoritarian regime. The ruling elites, to a great extent, explain such approach by their willingness to provide security and stability. The question that should be raised, however, is why stability has to necessarily oppose the notion of democracy? This paper aims to explore this dilemma by analyzing key features of the monarchy, indicating how stability is embedded in it. The paper concludes that the stability rhetoric pursued by the regime and transposed onto the society hinders further democratic development in Jordan. “Everyone needs to start thinking differently about the Middle East. The international community’s old approach was to prioritize stability over democracy and pursue Israeli-Arab peace on a completely separate diplomatic track. This policy proved to be a failure – placing stability ahead of democracy brought neither, and isolated peace efforts went nowhere. If the US and other world powers want to make headway on their three key objectives – stability, political reform and peace – they need to understand how they are linked and pursue all three simultaneously and holistically”. 1 Introduction The status quo in Jordan has remained largely intact for the past quarter-century despite the alleged political opening in 1989 and subsequent liberalisation of the socio-economic system. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an authoritarian regime where the king holds almost absolute power, and where the very word “democracy” has been used for decades as a façade for the sake of gaining international support and calming the public. The discourse prevailing in the Kingdom sets stability as a key priority to be pursued by all means, even at the expense of democratic reform. Initially launched by the ruling elites, the stability rhetoric gained popular support when the middle class and other groups of the multifaceted Jordanian society jumped on the bandwagon. The question that should be raised, however, is for whom such stability is de facto meant for, and, accordingly, why does it necessarily have to oppose the notion of democracy? Thus, it is essential to explore the main socio-economic, political, historical, contemporary, domestic, and international features of the monarchy in Jordan in order to verify which ones are, quite irreconcilably, calling for stabilising the status quo instead of pushing for meaningful reform. Full understanding of the contemporary social relations in general, but in the Middle East in particular, requires knowledge about short-term and long-term events, as well as the processes that preceded them. Such an assumption stems from acknowledging the path dependence with all its * Centre for International Initiatives Sciences, e-mail: artur.malantowicz@gmail.com. Research for this paper was conducted as part of the research project no. 2013/11/N/HS5/04210 funded by the National Science Centre. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 4 th Global International Studies Conference (2014) and the 4 th World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (2014). 1 Marwan Muasher and Javier Solana, ‘Peace Now for Palestine’, Project Syndicate, 14 March 2011, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/peace-now-for-palestine (accessed 21 July 2016).