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Protesting Jordan: Geographies of Power and Dissent
Abstract
A National Endowment for Democracy Notable Book of 2022 Protest has been a key method of political claim-making in Jordan from the late Ottoman period to the present day. More than moments of rupture within normal-time politics, protests have been central to challenging state power, as well as reproducing it—and the spatial dynamics of protests play a central role in the construction of both state and society. With this book, Jillian Schwedler considers how space and geography influence protests and repression, and, in challenging conventional narratives of Hashemite state-making, offers the first in-depth study of rebellion in Jordan. Based on twenty-five years of field research, Protesting Jordan examines protests as they are situated in the built environment, bringing together considerations of networks, spatial imaginaries, space and place-making, and political geographies at local, national, regional, and global scales. Schwedler considers the impact of time and temporality in the lifecycles of individual movements. Through a mixed interpretive methodology, this book illuminates the geographies of power and dissent and the spatial practices of protest and repression, highlighting the political stakes of competing narratives about Jordan's past, present, and future.
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“Instead, the internet facilitates horizontalism which manifests as small, informal groups independently deciding to plan mobilization events in their locality that are under the broad goals of the movement (Schwedler 2022; Yom 2014; 2022).”
From Coordinated Dis-Coordination (2024) · cites this paper as Schwedler 2022
Citations
Cited by
Event ethnography: Studying power and politics through events
Koch, N. R. (2023) · Geography Compass · doi:10.1111/gec3.12729 · Cited by 55
Movement versus Party: The Electoral Effects of Anti-Far Right Protests in Greece
Ellinas, A. A., & Lamprianou, I. (2023) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055423000588 · Cited by 22
“…efforts to incorporate spatial insights into the examination of protest (Andrews and Seguin 2015; Martin and Miller 2003; Routledge 1997; Schwedler 2022; Zhang and Zhao 2019), the analysis of protest outcomes is only gradually coming to terms with the importance of space (Miller 2000;…”
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Tarvainen, A., & Challand, B. (2023) · Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers · doi:10.1111/tran.12663 · Cited by 14
HASSAN, M. (2024) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055423000291 · Cited by 12
“Instead, the internet facilitates horizontalism which manifests as small, informal groups independently deciding to plan mobilization events in their locality that are under the broad goals of the movement (Schwedler 2022; Yom 2014; 2022).”
BackgroundFrom Victims to Dissidents: Legacies of Violence and Popular Mobilization in Iraq (2003–2018)
Berman, C., Clarke, K., & Majed, R. (2023) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055423000254 · Cited by 18
“Protests may coalesce into broader uprisings or revolutions (Beissinger 2013; Chenoweth et al. 2019) or they make take the form of smaller-scale or routinized acts of resistance (Schwedler 2022).”
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“…erupted in 2018 (including by the syndicates for engineers, lawyers, doctors, nurses and veterinarians) against increases in income taxes and fuel prices alongside other political demands, forcing the government to resign and rescind these decisions (Shama, 2018a, 2018b; also see Schwedler, 2022).”
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“These spatial re-articulations pose a challenge to established notions of context, security, and state-society relations (see Jenss and Schuetze 2021; Parker and Debruyne 2015; Schwedler 2022).”
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“…Embassy or even spaces associated with a history of transgressive protests); impact important economic sectors; fail to provide advanced notice; are organized by new entrants; or if protests otherwise deviate from established “ scripts ” of contained contention (Moss, 2014; Schwedler, 2022).”
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“As Schwedler (Schwedler 2022) demonstrates, the physical spaces of protest and public deliberation have been powerfully circumscribed by the state; and as Schuetze (Schuetze 2019) has shown, the advancement of donor-led neoliberal reforms has hollowed out key facets of socioeconomic stability,…”
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“…frameworks embedded in global North–South relations and comparisons figure prominently in this scholarship, particularly within the scope of our respective topics on humanitarian aid and social movements (for some key exceptions, see, Carpi, 2020; Feldman, 2018; Larzillière, 2016; Schwedler, 2022).”
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Wolf, A. (2024) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/00104140241252101 · Cited by 4
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“Jillian Schwedler (2022) shows how the practices and display of routine protests in Jordan foster emotional connections and spatial visions that authorities seek to align with their political objectives.”
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“Reflecting on the history and politics of protests and dissent in contemporary Jordan, Schwedler (2022) argues that the Arab Spring in Jordan gave rise to a new ‘social group’ involved in civil resistance and popular mobilisation that collectively became known as the Hirak (the protest movement).”
BackgroundInfluentialRevolutionary Emotions: The Roots of Revolutionary Waves
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Forester, S. (2024) · International Political Science Review · doi:10.1177/01925121241241011 · Cited by 2
“Domestically, the regime weathered its own Arab spring protests, in part by advancing a narrative that the mon-archy was attuned to public demands for reform (Ryan, 2018) and in part by violent repression (Schwedler, 2022).”
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“As Jillian Schwedler (2022, 2024) has noted in her comprehensive analyses of protest politics, demonstrations and activism often follow fairly clear parameters, maintaining acceptable ‘protest repertoires’.”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Schwedler, J.
- Corresponding author
- Schwedler, Jillian
- ORCID
- Schwedler, Jillian
- Venue
- Stanford University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Stanford University Press
- Published
- 2022-04-19
- OpenAlex
- W4288765847
- Cited by
- 65
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 22.02
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Stanford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Middle East Politics and Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Keywords
- protest, Jordan, political geography, spatial imaginaries, state repression, rebellion, built environment, place-making, political networks, state-society relations
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