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Demobilizing Jordan’s “Arab Spring”: The Impact of Moral Injury
Abstract
This paper examines how emotions contributed to the demobilization – and lack of remobilization – of young Jordanians who participated in the 2011-2012 protests in the Kingdom. Exploring the under-developed connection between emotions and social movement demobilization (and remobilization), the paper introduces the psychological construct of moral injury into the social movement literature. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted with Jordanians who participated in Jordan’s “Arab Spring”, the paper argues that the unforeseen failure of these protests to achieve their goals created morally injurious events that resulted in cognitive dissonance among a majority of novice participants. The cognitive dissonance that was experienced by these participants led to two distinct outcomes. Older participants were able to resolve the dissonance and consequently remained active in the movements or subsequently remobilized. Younger participants, however, were less able to resolve the cognitive dissonance, resulting in the development of moral injury, typically leading to declined participation, an exit from social movements, and a failure to remobilize in future waves of contention. The paper not only helps to explain the demobilization of Jordan’s “Arab Spring” protests, but also highlights the importance of engaging with emotions in analysis of movement demobilization. It further introduces a new psychological construct to the social movement literature, encouraging scholars to consider moral injury to support the analysis of a range of demobilization phenomena in different contexts.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Jordan
Sub Area
Middle East/Near East Studies