The moral economics of the Islamic Action Front, the partisan wing of the original Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, is both defined and compromised by internal inconsistency. Similar to others that might be classified as a socially conservative, religiously-oriented political party, the Islamic Action Front pledges a paternalist commitment to the poor only to undermine the already limited prospects of such paternalism through the adoption of charity-based approaches to social welfare and through their more general advocacy for economic liberalization, free markets, capital mobility, and private initiative. How can one best explain both the contradictions constituting the Islamic Action Front's economics and the political implications contained within such an economic agenda? This article will review the intersection of local class structure, party ideology, and history so to furnish an answer.

While frequently hailed as the sole success story of the Arab Uprisings, the consolidation of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution has in fact proven deeply problematic. This paper will argue that the frailty of Tunisia’s democratic present is a direct function of liberal democratization, specifically implicating this practice of democratization in the hollowing and cartelization of the political system. In insulating policymaking within a host of nocturnal councils, I will argue that liberal democratization has purposefully obstructed the translation of popular preferences into policy outcomes, thereby preventing the Tunisian people from realizing the social democracy they so clearly desire.

This article explores the development strategies articulated and implemented in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during the tenure of King Abdullah ii. It begins by establishing the consistency with which national planners have adopted ideas, recommendations, and ideological scripts initially authored by the international financial institutions (ifis). Having documented the endurance of Jordan’s “policy convergence”, it explains this outcome as a dialectical function of foreign interference and local agency. Demonstrating how the lines between the national, international, and transnational blur in constituting the contemporary Jordanian political economy, this case study in actually existing neoliberalism will provide a unique look at the actors, interests, ideas and processes at the heart of the country’s enduring underdevelopment.