Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco: Strategies of Centralization and Decentralization by Janine A. Clark (review)

In a book that draws on a wealth of field research and interviews, Janine Clark addresses the question of when and why authoritarian regimes choose to decentralize. Her cases, Jordan and Morocco, are both monarchies that have faced the challenges of structural adjustment promoted or dictated by international financial institutions. Why is it, she asks, that Morocco chose decentralization and Jordan, at least until 2015, did not?

Clark argues that the key to understanding the different choices lies in the composition of the sociopolitical coalition underpinning each regime and, in particular, the strength of political parties. In Morocco, she argues that when the regime felt challenged in the 1980s, it chose to decentralize power to expand its base from an elite of makhzen (government) and Berber notables. As it allowed for the establishment of new civil society organizations as well as new elected councils, elites from the political parties, which Clark characterizes as institutionally strong but had played an oppositional role, sought to capture these new "resources" and were in turn "captured" by the regime. Clark argues that the only exception to this pattern was the Justice and Development Party, the Islamist faction she devotes a separate chapter to.

In the case of Jordan, on the other hand, favoring the Transjordanian tribes as the bedrock of regime support, the Hashemite monarchs long eschewed decentralization. Clark argues that the choice of centralization strengthened tribalism and thereby undermined political party development. As a result, however, in the "context of shrinking resources and a crisis in municipal service provision, particularly in the rural Transjordanian-dominated municipalities, the regime's strategy of centralization has exacerbated the competition between tribes and fragmented them along clan and family lines" (p. 284). Clark thus argues that that the Moroccan approach of regime coalition expansion through decentralization has promoted stability, whereas Jordan's centralizing approach creates instability.

This study and its multifaceted argument raise many questions, only a few of which can be addressed in such a short review.

First, in the case of Jordan, there is no question that the regime has favored the Transjordanian base in myriad ways, direct and indirect. But Clark's portrayal of the sociopolitical coalition underpinning the regime in terms of a stark dichotomy between Transjordanians and Palestinians misses a key component: the large Palestinian private sector has also been central to regime maintenance over the years, and not just in the form of high-profile economic advisers or ministers, which the author does mention. Rather, the bargain, if you will, has been an implicit renunciation of equal political representation and voice in exchange for relative domestic stability even as regional currents have battered Palestinians resident elsewhere in the region. That the regime can generally count on this sector of the population to abstain from active opposition was clear in the overwhelmingly Transjordanian participation in the 1989 economic riots and more recently during the Arab uprisings.

Clark also fails to take into account the regime's role in stoking or suppressing tensions between Transjordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin. She implicitly argues a consistency in regime approach to the communal divide, and claims that relations are currently worse than they have ever been. In fact, the degree of tension in the relationship has varied over time, owing to both regional developments and regime interests. Certainly, one would not argue that relations today are worse than they were in 1970 when the monarchy engaged Palestinian factions in a monthlong civil conflict.

Finally, Clark's contention regarding decentralization's role in what she describes as the fracturing of tribes is fascinating but requires additional empirical material to be convincing. Tribalism and tribal identity have been increasingly prominent in the last several decades in Jordan, a phenomenon that deserves a study on its own. Is this trend a part of, or a countercurrent to, what she labels as fracturing?

Turning to Morocco, the detailed case study demonstrates...