What are the effects of the politicization of state security agencies on state-society relations? The provision of security and protection are the quintessential, Weberian role of contemporary nation-states. In fact, the police are often the most tangible face of the state for ordinary citizens. The politicization of police forces thus has widespread consequences for relations between state security institutions and citizens. In Lebanon, the country’s the Internal Security Forces (ISF) are frequently criticized for being deficient in their duties as a civilian police force and instead focused on protecting the political status quo. Based on archival police records, GIS mapping of security institutions, and over 120 semi-structured interviews with citizens, civil society activists, and former security sector employees in Lebanon, I argue that the politicization of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) has had two major consequences. First, it has decreased trust and respect of the agency by citizens. Second, when security institutions become clientelistic resources, employees appointed via patronage must weigh their professional roles with their obligations to the political party that secured their employment. This has contributed to biased and mediated access to policing and help and, more importantly, allowed the institution to become an enforcer for specific political interests. I show how these dynamics play out in both everyday life and at crucial political moments, such as the ongoing “All of Them Means All of Them” (Kiloun Y3ani Kiloun) protests.

Jordan lies at the epicenter of a fragmenting Arab state system and changing regional order. Its government is semi-autocratic with pervading attributes of neo-patrimonialism and the security state, both of which have led to a fragile civil society. Through the case of social enterprises, this paper examines how Jordan’s royal NGOs (RONGOs) have become involved in the state’s surveillance mechanisms and contribute to the entrenchment of authoritarian governance practices. Social entrepreneurship refers to the employment of business-like tactics to achieve primarily social goals. In Jordan, they constitute a nascent but important part of the country’s civil society by challenging established (and state-sanctioned) conceptions of government accountability and popular activism. International organizations and foreign governments alike have championed social entrepreneurship in Jordan because they consider it a promising vehicle for economic prosperity and citizen participation leading to greater state stability. In addition, entrepreneurship promotion efforts seek to address the various concerns raised by Jordan’s large youth population. While much of the existing literature discussing social entrepreneurship in the Middle East takes a positive and hopeful approach, this paper presents a critical review of its actual functions within the Jordanian surveillance state, with particular reference to the new role RONGOs play in this system. The research is based on over forty semi-structured interviews conducted in Jordan from January to April 2018 and analyses the challenges social entrepreneurs face in Jordan regarding state bureaucratic and surveillance mechanisms. The conclusions indicate that authoritarianism in the country is not only persistent but also evolving. That the regime would employ surveillance mechanisms to control social enterprises is to be expected, considering Jordan’s history. The involvement of royal NGOs in this process through sponsorship, awards, and cooptation of social enterprises, however, is new, particularly for King Abdullah II’s reign. It suggests a more direct participation of the monarchy in the surveillance apparatus which was not present before. It also shows that the monarchy, through its direct involvement, is tightening the leash it has given civil society and is devising new realms of influence through which society can be directed, restricted, and ultimately controlled. The research contributes to debates about democratization in Jordan and the wider Middle East by showing how royal NGOs have expanded their involvement in the surveillance state. The implication of this is that Jordan is not democratizing but further entrenching authoritarianism.

The expanding market of private security in authoritarian regimes poses a novel opportunity to investigate the role of the state within the context of Neoliberalism. The role of political elites and their need to maintain their stronghold over coercive power in a growing context of private security corporations (PSCs) and global surveillance-technology companies can shed new light on central issues of authoritarianism and securitization. In Morocco only a handful of PSCs existed in the 1990s. Today, estimates account for thousands of local and international companies acting in the country with dozens of thousands of workers in the sector. Yet the Moroccan regime does not seem to lose way in its centrality in deploying coercive power in the name of a certain narrative of security. Through the Moroccan case and the emergence of the private security sector in the country, I analyze the dynamics that define relations between political elites, and old and new security elites. Through in-depth interviews with key players (CEOs, public security officers, and surveillance experts), official and institutional reports and fieldwork observation, I use political economy and network analysis to show how neoliberal security is a mutually beneficial endeavor for regime elites as well as for the most successful companies. Consistent with the massive privatization of public space and the continuation of ‘land enclosure’, private security is completing the task with a progressive ‘life enclosure’. That is, an ever more pervasive privatization of individuals’ and communities’ lives. This is either done through criminalization of communities and marginalized populations, or through technological and gated protection of the privileged class. As a result, I show how the ‘new’ market needs a strong state in order to provide a narrative and regulatory framework for security needs in areas not accessible/inefficient to ordinary public security deployment (free trade zones, factories, touristic and commercial sites, etc.); as well as to expel small private security providers. On the other hand, the different public elites show a complex attitude towards the sector but ultimately seem to accommodate through either finding ways to individually benefit from the sector or simply by enhancing public order and surveillance.

Since the breakout of the Arab Spring, most of the relevant states in the region have been engaged in a vicious circle of violence caused by various actors in both state and private conflicts and the hegemons once considered as the vanguard of Arab nationalism saw a sharp decline of their resources of power, while Jordan, a typical example of “weak-state security dilemma” in the argument of Regime Security secured successfully its legitimacy. This research, which is based on literature review and field research explores what the meanings of regime security in Jordan and the strength of its state institutions are, in the face of an unprecedented security insurgency in the Middle East today. Against this background, in the first section, the research sketches the condition of regime survival in the Middle East and Jordan since the Arab Spring. In the following sections, the old and new relations and power distribution among the Jordanian political and security apparatuses, before and after 2011, will be examined. In terms of its military security capability, the case of Jordan reveals some simple facts that demonstrate what is essential to maintaining armed forces stability despite regional turbulence. In its seven decades-long and often debilitating struggle against both internal and external challenges, Jordan has nearly conquered its state-to-nation imbalance, as demonstrated by the efforts by the Hashemite leaders’ efforts to build functional and loyal armed forces and to enhance international support. However, ironically, the comparatively stable and military-empowered Jordan had to face the terrorism threat directly and insurgency coming from war-torn Syria and Iraq. On the other hand, dialogue with the wave of political liberalization in Jordan after 2011 was a more sensitive issue for the monarchy than deterring external threats, while the democratization movement saw, by the end of 2011, a sudden decrease in its size and the number of participant actors. Any political reforms in Jordan including democratization are still considered as the monarchy’s top-down output in the context of regime security. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the government has to continue tackling the democratization dilemma with fewer options of both political resources and material incentives so far, to co-opt the oppositions and the citizens who are less ideological motived but simply demand political transparency and individual liberty.