7 - How Jordan’s Blame Games Influence Governance

Summary

Chapter 7 concludes the Jordanian case study by analyzing the theory’s expectations for how strategic interactions around delegation and blame influence repression, protest, and accountability in authoritarian political systems. Original protest data indicates that the monarchy permits hundreds of protests each year and that security forces repress only a tiny fraction of these events. Instead, repression is highly targeted at those individuals who cross the regime’s redlines by publicly blaming and criticizing the king. The chapter explains how this approach to repression complicates anti-royal coordination, even among those opposition figures who personally blame the monarchy for Jordan’s ills. The chapter also illustrates how the monarchy provides limited accountability by removing prime ministers and cabinet ministers when the public becomes visibly dissatisfied with the government’s performance.