'Jordan and the Legacies of State Formation'

The Global Studies Seminar welcomes Ziad Abu-Rish presenting “Jordan, the Arab Uprisings, and the Legacies of State Formation.” This presentation will discuss the reverberations of the Arab uprisings in Jordan between 2011 and 2013. While activist groups and various other political forces organized demonstrations in Jordan during this period, neither the number of people who took to the streets nor the nature of the demands advanced by them approximated those of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere. This presentation will offer an explanation rooted in historical institutionalism, regime-opposition dynamics, and the strategic importance of Jordan to regional and global powers. In short, the desire of the Jordanian citizenry for a more transparent, accountable, and socio-economically just political system is no less than any other part of the world. Abu-Rish is an assistant professor of Middle East history in the Department of History at Ohio University.