234
services – today, including access to water – are exchanged for allegiance. Over
time, however, the political infl uence and sense of entitlement accompanying privileges and benefi ts transferred has eroded the monarchy’s autonomy.
In the face of changing circumstances – the challenges of state formation, panArabism, nationalism, war, migration and development, and the economy’s downturn in the 1980s – the Hashemites pursued imaginative co-option policies to
consolidate power and maintain stability. In the process, the organisation of power
and its location would alter, with consequences for decision-making, and the
strength of the king’s role in it. What amounted to an evolving political bargain
between Throne and people permitted infl uential traditional elites and businessmen,
enjoying a variety of privileges, to become embedded in a web of power – or shadow
state (Tripp 2007 , pp. 4–5), whose infl uence today penetrates the core elite, military
and intelligence, bureaucracy and parliament. Understanding the power dynamics
of these “shadow” networks whose growing infl uence afforded special interest
groups opportunity to resist change and infl uence policies to protect their interests
at the expense of those of the state (Muasher 2011 ), sheds light on the water governance defi cits of the last two decades.
Transjordan’s creation in March 1921 under Amir Abdullah was the result of an
historic opportunity seized by the British to contain French expansion in the region.
Transjordan was not a separate political entity and its people’s heterogeneity –
Transjordanians of East Bank origin but also from Arabia and from Palestine before
1948 – complicated the forging of a national identity. Palestinians would come to
comprise more than half the population. The presence of non-Arab Circassians,
Arab Christians and substantial Iraqi, and today Syrian, communities, as well as
rivalries between tribes complicate the picture. Faced with inevitable disintegrative
pulls, King Abdullah I and his successor, King Hussein, sought to build a common
identity of interest between the Hashemites and their subjects.
The pursuit of a complex process of co-option to keep in with supporters and win
the acquiescence of potential opposition would be key to consolidating Hashemite
rule, which became embedded in patron-client relations, laying the basis of the
“shadow state”. Lacking central power, Abdullah courted the tribes with arms,
funds and employment in the military and extended patronage to merchants in order
to extend state authority – policies facilitated by British subsidies. In the turbulent
1950s and 1960s, the political bargain took on new forms: with fl ows of unconditional
US fi nancial assistance replacing British funds (Peters and Moore 2009 ),
8 Hussein
responded to the growing demands of East Bank tribes by expanding the army and
distributing members of tribes and minorities, his key supporters, through the
administration and political structures, while drawing others into state. He rewarded
merchants with public-sector jobs and contracts, protected the interests of and provided jobs for Transjordanian and Palestinian critics, and met the needs of Palestinian
refugees through US-funded building of infrastructure. Arab aid fl ows during the
1970s’ oil boom contributed to funding growing state largesse. Thus the king was
able to subordinate Transjordanian traditional elites – and potential challengers
amongst them – to the infl uence of the state and give the Palestinians a stake in the
8 Military spending increased by 74 % in 1955–1960 and tripled in 1961–1975.
V. Yorke
services – today, including access to water – are exchanged for allegiance. Over
time, however, the political infl uence and sense of entitlement accompanying privileges and benefi ts transferred has eroded the monarchy’s autonomy.
In the face of changing circumstances – the challenges of state formation, panArabism, nationalism, war, migration and development, and the economy’s downturn in the 1980s – the Hashemites pursued imaginative co-option policies to
consolidate power and maintain stability. In the process, the organisation of power
and its location would alter, with consequences for decision-making, and the
strength of the king’s role in it. What amounted to an evolving political bargain
between Throne and people permitted infl uential traditional elites and businessmen,
enjoying a variety of privileges, to become embedded in a web of power – or shadow
state (Tripp 2007 , pp. 4–5), whose infl uence today penetrates the core elite, military
and intelligence, bureaucracy and parliament. Understanding the power dynamics
of these “shadow” networks whose growing infl uence afforded special interest
groups opportunity to resist change and infl uence policies to protect their interests
at the expense of those of the state (Muasher 2011 ), sheds light on the water governance defi cits of the last two decades.
Transjordan’s creation in March 1921 under Amir Abdullah was the result of an
historic opportunity seized by the British to contain French expansion in the region.
Transjordan was not a separate political entity and its people’s heterogeneity –
Transjordanians of East Bank origin but also from Arabia and from Palestine before
1948 – complicated the forging of a national identity. Palestinians would come to
comprise more than half the population. The presence of non-Arab Circassians,
Arab Christians and substantial Iraqi, and today Syrian, communities, as well as
rivalries between tribes complicate the picture. Faced with inevitable disintegrative
pulls, King Abdullah I and his successor, King Hussein, sought to build a common
identity of interest between the Hashemites and their subjects.
The pursuit of a complex process of co-option to keep in with supporters and win
the acquiescence of potential opposition would be key to consolidating Hashemite
rule, which became embedded in patron-client relations, laying the basis of the
“shadow state”. Lacking central power, Abdullah courted the tribes with arms,
funds and employment in the military and extended patronage to merchants in order
to extend state authority – policies facilitated by British subsidies. In the turbulent
1950s and 1960s, the political bargain took on new forms: with fl ows of unconditional
US fi nancial assistance replacing British funds (Peters and Moore 2009 ),
8 Hussein
responded to the growing demands of East Bank tribes by expanding the army and
distributing members of tribes and minorities, his key supporters, through the
administration and political structures, while drawing others into state. He rewarded
merchants with public-sector jobs and contracts, protected the interests of and provided jobs for Transjordanian and Palestinian critics, and met the needs of Palestinian
refugees through US-funded building of infrastructure. Arab aid fl ows during the
1970s’ oil boom contributed to funding growing state largesse. Thus the king was
able to subordinate Transjordanian traditional elites – and potential challengers
amongst them – to the infl uence of the state and give the Palestinians a stake in the
8 Military spending increased by 74 % in 1955–1960 and tripled in 1961–1975.
V. Yorke