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"Police forces in the Middle East are broadly perceived by the outside world in terms of either their coercive role in repressing and observing the citizenry of states lacking in popular legitimacy, or their corruption and usurpation of judicial powers. While this perception can be justified by regional trends of authoritarianism, it presents a distorted picture of state control. It also fails to address the importance of 'low-policing', where the police rely on varied strategies of power to promote social order, particularly when it comes to problem-solving and policing disputes between citizens. This book studies the development of the civil police in Jordan to demonstrate that even in an illiberal setting, the police can be central to the process of constructing and maintaining hegemonic consent, and that equally, the fracturing of social order is not always signified by police violence. Unlike orthodox criminological appraisals of crime control that render the nature of state power unproblematic, this work contends that the manner in which common grievances and offences are handled by the police is deeply political, defining the state's character and the social order within it. I draw on police science, political theory and legal anthropology to explain how the police have historically used Jordan's oft-touted 'tribal' characteristics to garner consent and reinforce order from below; to consider how these attributes have contributed to regime survival; but also to highlight the police role in upholding competing normative frameworks related to civic participation and neoliberalism which are emerging from a combination of external pressures and domestic threats. The book should have a broad appeal not only to scholars of governance in contemporary Jordan but also to those interested in the resilience of authoritarian rule in the modern Middle East, the intersection of formal and informal normative institutions to regulate common grievances, and indeed to all those who question the assumption that the police - in any society - are first and foremost concerned with preserving the rule of law"--
List of contents
Preface; 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, disputing criminality: police and legal pluralism; 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.
About the author
Jessica Watkins is a Research Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics. In 2015, she won the Elsevier outstanding thesis award and was runner-up for the Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize for best PhD dissertation on the Middle East. She previously worked in Iraq as a civilian translator with British forces and Iraqi police.
Summary
Although Middle Eastern states are commonly referred to as 'police states', little has been written about their police. By studying the 'low policing' of interpersonal disputes in Jordan, this book outlines the inconspicuous, daily methods the state uses to create and sustain the social order.
Foreword
Explores 'low policing' of interpersonal disputes in Jordan to show the inconspicuous methods the state uses to maintain social order.
