The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan: Political Movement Learning through the Arab Spring Protests, 2011-2013

Abstract

This study seeks to use the period of 2011 to 2013, aligned with Jordan’s Arab Spring, to identify the extent to which the Islamic Action front and the Jordan Muslim Brotherhood underwent political and social movement learning during this time period. I used coding of newspaper and newswire service articles to examine how the Islamic Action Front and Jordan Muslim Brotherhood participated in protests and to understand what their calls for reform and cross-ideological cooperation with other political and social movements implied for their own future in the Jordanian political system. Additionally, previous survey data from other researchers was incorporated to provide a context for what level of support the Brotherhood and its political party have today in Jordan’s semiauthoritarian political sphere. This study found that the Islamic Action Front and the Jordan Muslim Brotherhood used strategic cooperation with other Jordanian organizations and movements in order to heighten pressure on the Jordanian government to undertake reform, despite the regime’s strict control over the Islamists’ ability to have power in parliament and within the political system.