Creating Consent in an Illiberal Order

Policing Disputes in Jordan

Jessica Watkins

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781009098618
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009115940
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Middle Eastern police forces have a reputation for carrying out repression and surveillance on behalf of authoritarian regimes, despite frequently under enforcing the law. But what is their role in co-creating and sustaining social order? In this book, Jessica Watkins focuses on the development of the Jordanian police institution to demonstrate that rather than being primarily concerned with law enforcement, the police are first and foremost concerned with order. In Jordan, social order combines the influence of longstanding tribal practices with regime efforts to promote neoliberal economic policies alongside a sense of civic duty amongst citizens. Rather than focusing on the 'high policing' of offences deemed to threaten state security, Watkins explores the 'low policing' of interpersonal disputes including assault, theft, murder, traffic accidents, and domestic abuse to shed light on the varied strategies of power deployed by the police alongside other societal actors to procure hegemonic 'consent'.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Transliterations
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Strategic Alliances and Amalgamated Social Orders: The Basis of Authoritarian Survival
• 3 State Policing, from the Ottoman Gendarmerie to the Public Security Directorate
• 4 Criminalising Disputes and Disputing Criminality: Legal Pluralism in Police Practice
• 5 Policing Blood Crimes in the (Neo)Tribal Tradition
• 6 Policing Domestic Abuse: Police and Women’s Rights Groups
• 7 Community Policing After the Uprisings: Refugees and Representatives
• 8 From Neoliberal Securitised Policing Back to the Disputing Process
• Bibliography
• Index