Beyond Boom and Bust: External Rents,Durable Authoritarianism,and Institutional Adaptation in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Drawing on recent critiques and advances in theories of the rentier state, this paper uses an in-depth case study of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to posit a new “supply and demand” approach to the study of external rents and authoritarian durability. The Jordanian rentier state is not exclusively a product of external rents, particularly foreign aid, but also of the demands of a coalition encompassing groups with highly disparate economic policy preferences. The breadth of the Hashemite coalition requires that the regime dispense rent-fueled side payments to coalition members through constructing distributive institutions. Yet neither rent supply nor coalition demands are static. Assisted by geopolitically motivated donors, the Hashemites have adapted institutions over time to tap a diverse supply of rents that range from economic and military aid to protocol trade, allowing them to retain power through periods of late development, domestic political crisis, and neoliberal conditionality.

Pete W. MooreEmail:

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Anne Mariel Peters   is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. Her recent dissertation, Special Relationships, Dollars, and Development, examines the relationship among US aid, coalition politics, and institutions in Egypt, Jordan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Her current research examines the use of donor-financed “parallel institutions” in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. Pete W. Moore   is Associate Professor of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. He has conducted research and published on issues of comparative political economy and US trade policy in the Middle East. His current research as a 2008–2009 Fulbright Fellow in the United Arab Emirates examines how the civil war in Iraq is reshaping regional political economies.