The Social and Economic Origins of Monarchy in Jordan (Middle East Today)

A history of the emergence and consolidation of the modern state in Jordan, this book examines the resilience of the Hashemite monarchy and the economic sources of its social power under Ottoman, British, and post-colonial Hashemite rule. Filling a gap in the current literature, it asks how the sources of Hashemite power in Jordon were first forged and why they have proven more durable than those fashioned under more auspicious circumstances in Iraq. In contrast to much of what has been written, Tariq Tell locates the answers to these questions not in the statecraft of the Hashemite monarchs, nor in the dynamics of their policies on the Palestinian issue, but rather in the historical political economy of Trans-Jordan and the evolution of a monarchical social pact, which exchanged loyalty for economic security and bound the peasants and pastoralists of the East Bank to the throne.