‘We’ve got this policy,now what?’ The security politics of implementing the Family Protection Law in Jordan

Abstract

In this article, I bring together scholarship from feminist international relations and comparative gender politics to investigate how and why Jordan has implemented its policy addressing domestic violence, the 2008 Family Protection Law. Through a qualitative case study, I find that implementation is partial. Aspects of the policy that elevate Jordan’s status in the international arena and sustain domestic male privilege are implemented. Attempts at implementing aspects of the policy that grant greater autonomy to women are met with intense opposition, which is justified on the basis of preserving state stability. Taken together, this article demonstrates how international pressure and national security (i.e., state-centric) practices combine with domestic conservatism to produce unintended consequences: ineffective violence against women policies that are minimally implemented. The analysis adds nuance to both the feminist international relations and comparative gender politics literatures by demonstrating how domestic gender policymaking processes are influenced by national and international security politics.

Keywords

Militarism violence against women feminist international relations public policy Middle East politics

When it comes to domestic violence, we get lip service because of the international pressure . . . It’s just ‘complete the form.’ So, you need a law on domestic violence? There. You have a law. But it’s not going to provide real protection. It’s like we have this policy, now what?

(Activist, Amman, Jordan; interview 1)

In 2008, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan adopted the Family Protection Law (FPL) to combat the problem of domestic violence and provide greater services to survivors of abuse. International institutions and foreign governments immediately praised the move and held up Jordan as an example of progress, democracy, and modernity in the region. The 2008 FPL was indeed a landmark; Jordan was one of the first states in the Middle East to adopt a policy explicitly aimed at combatting domestic violence. The monarchy reveled in the international praise and called on its neighbors to follow Jordan’s example.

As suggested by both feminist scholars and the Jordanian women’s rights activist cited above, domestic gender policymaking does not occur in a vacuum. Global forces like international pressure, militarism, capitalism, and colonialism factor in to a state’s assessments of when to act on women’s rights and what kind of women’s rights they will adopt (Forester, 2019; Htun and Weldon, 2012; Moghadam, 2005). And, although studies on gender policy adoption have proliferated in recent years, there is a dearth of literature on gender policy implementation. How these policies become part of political and social life, then, remains an open question. In short, we struggle to fully understand the degree to which the laws on the books have prompted particular courses of action in the real world. Put most simply, states have these policies, now what?

This article explores violence against women (VAW) policy implementation through a feminist international relations (IR) lens; I specifically examine the implementation of Jordan’s domestic violence policy, the 2008 FPL, and what connection this has to militarism and Jordan’s security politics and practices. In the following sections, I bring feminist IR literature into conversation with the literature on VAW implementation. Then I turn to the case of Jordan. I examine the degree to which the government has implemented the policy, grounding this analysis in a discussion of the security context and militarization in Jordan. I analyze implementation by observing the establishment of Family Protection Departments (FPDs), family reconciliation committees, and evidence of sustained, formal training about the policy (i.e., measurable and observable indicators of policy implementation) in the years since the adoption of the FPL.

I conclude that implementation has been partial at best. Externally facing, Jordan presents itself as a regional leader on VAW and has received awards and accolades for its position on combating VAW. Domestically facing, however, the monarchy is motivated by militarized logics that prioritize state security and stability above all else. As part of its pursuit of state stability, it has used women’s rights as a bartering chip with conservative groups. Islamists and conservative blocs agree to support the regime’s foreign policy initiatives so long as they can set the tone and tenor of women’s rights in the kingdom; male guardianship, the control of women, and traditional family values are prominent features of their interpretations of women’s rights. As such, I argue that Jordan’s approach to state stability and regime maintenance is linked to, and predicated on, the subordination of women. The article adds nuance to both gender policymaking and feminist IR scholarship, demonstrating how militarism and security concerns shape patterns and processes of gender policy implementation.

Feminist IR and gender policymaking

Two critical contributions from the feminist IR literature clarify the relationship between security processes and gender policymaking: the masculine protection racket and the continuum of violence. Both concepts are underpinned by feminist conceptions of militarism, and, in the following sections, I explain how these contributions provide a more complete understanding of the gender policymaking process.

Militarism and the masculine protection racket

Feminist IR scholars have been at the forefront of articulating how militarism shapes societies and politics. As Sjoberg and Via (2010: 7) explain: ‘Militarism is the extension of war-related, war-preparatory, and war-based meanings and activities outside of “war proper” and into social and political life more generally.’ Militarism informs how we understand the role of the state in cultivating security, in identifying threats, and in restoring and/or maintaining order and peace. Inherent to militarism is the logic of using force to protect against a violent ‘other’ (Shepherd, 2016; see also Enloe, 2007), and of preparing for war as natural, rational, and appropriate (Enloe, 2007).

Further, this body of scholarship interrogates the power dynamics that link gender and militarism, and the myriad ways that these interrelated systems shape identities, inform symbolic orders, and direct material processes (Prügl and Tickner, 2018; see also Cockburn, 2004; Cohn, 2013). Critically, the research demonstrates that militarism reifies notions of masculine protectors (Young, 2003). As Eichler (2018: 160) explains: ‘At its core, gendered militarism constructs feminized populations in need of masculinized protection.’ Feminist theorists have labeled this phenomenon the ‘masculine protection racket’ (Peterson, 1977; Sjoberg and Peet, 2011; Young, 2003), and consider it to be a type of social mechanism that gives force to gendered processes (Prügl and Tickner, 2018: 7).

Writing on masculine protection, Young (2003: 6) explains that ‘patriarchal right emerges from male specialization in security. The patriarch’s will rules because the patriarch faces the dangers outside and needs to organize defenses. Female subordination, on this account, derives from this position of being protected.’ In modernity, the state takes over this function of protection, demoting its citizens to dependents; the gendered hierarchies of power upon which masculine protection is premised remain intact and extend to state–society relations (Young (2003: 6). Writing on Syria, Aldoughli (2019) demonstrates how patriarchal protection manifests through the state’s paternalistic control of Syrian women in the constitution, penal law, honor killings, and nationality laws. Women, she explains, have a subordinate status in Syria that has been achieved ‘through idealizing protection of both the nation and women by the Syrian state’ (Aldoughli, 2019: 70).

Similar to Aldoughli, I use the lenses of masculine protection and militarism to understand how these interrelated forces inform government action on policies related to VAW. I argue that masculine protection sustains gendered hierarchies of male privilege and power, while logics of militarism link these hierarchies to social and political order and stability. If we have a deeper understanding of the logics at work when masculine protection is invoked, then we can better understand why some policies gain traction whereas others do not. Further, we can also identify what a policy or practice is preserving and what interests are being served.

The continuum of violence

Feminist IR scholars, from their earliest writings, produced analyses of international politics that centered everyday, so-called mundane forms of violence, not just violence committed by and to bodiless states (Innes and Steele, 2018; Runyan and Peterson, 1991; Tickner, 1992). Feminist scholars link the everyday to the international, offering analyses of the connections between and across these sites of inquiry (Elias and Rai, 2019; Shepherd, 2010; Wibben, 2018). These analyses show that a constitutive relationship exists between different forms of violence, what anti-militarist activists and scholars have labeled ‘the continuum of violence’ (Cockburn, 2004; Kelly, 1988; Wibben, 2020). From this perspective, violence ‘is a process rooted in social interactions and predicated on hierarchies of relations . . . [and includes] indirect forms of violence caused by gender-discriminatory social structures, cultural norms, and legal provisions that become normalised and embedded within societies’ (Yadav and Horn, 2020: 106). Explaining violence as a continuum disrupts artificial demarcations between war/peace, home front/battleground, and private/public; binaries that obscure how processes of violence overlap, replicate, and extend across both time and space (Chilmeran, 2023; Yadav and Horn, 2020).

The continuum of violence exposes how patriarchal and gendered power structures permeate all aspects of life, shaping how violence operates, how it is structured, and how it is institutionalized (Cockburn, 2004). Further, the continuum of violence situates individualized forms of violence within broader structures – like conflict and traditional national security pursuits – and institutionalized gender(ed) power relations that make violence and inequality both possible and permissible (Chilmeran, 2023; Cockburn, 2004). Recalling that militarism and masculine protection underpin and perpetuate gendered hierarchies, I contend that the continuum of violence makes it possible to connect these phenomena to domestic policy processes that shape women’s lives and experiences of violence and (in)security, with masculine protection informing and shaping the gender relations through which violence runs (see Cockburn, 2004).

Using the continuum of violence as an analytical starting point opens the door for connecting militarized (inter)national violence to inequitable and violent gender relations and practices. Although much feminist scholarship applies the continuum of violence to societies engaged in or recently emerging from conflict (e.g., Chilmeran, 2023; Cockburn, 2004), I contend that the continuum can help us grasp how violence exists in and permeates societies like Jordan that are seemingly ‘at peace.’ Analytically, the continuum of violence lays bare the futility of distinguishing between ‘normal times’ of ‘order’ and ‘crisis times’ of ‘upheaval’ (see Schwedler, 2022) to bring into focus the routine and frequently violent techniques used to maintain order. What is more, I argue that such an analysis demonstrates how patriarchal regimes rely on women’s subordination to achieve social order and state stability (see Enloe, 2014).

VAW policy implementation: conceptualizations and measurement

Policy implementation studies assess why a policy is implemented, why a policy is not implemented, and how a policy is implemented (Medie, 2015; Winter, 2003). From the literature, the key factors for understanding the policy implementation process are: the policy formation process and policy design; organizational and interorganizational behaviors (i.e., the degree of commitment from and coordination of implementing institutions); behaviors of street-level bureaucrats (those actors who directly deliver the services to citizens); target groups (i.e., the recipients of the services); and the socio-economic context (May and Winter, 2007; Montoya, 2013). These factors are shaped by the control political officials and elites exert, organizational control (i.e., the power of the implementing agencies), individual behavior and norms, and external pressure like social movements or international organizations (May and Winter, 2007; Medie, 2013; Montoya, 2013).

Empirical research about the implementation of VAW policies, in comparison with economic policies or social policies more broadly defined, is sparse (notable exceptions include: Avdeyeva, 2007; Burgess, 2012; Medie, 2015; Montoya, 2013; Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 1999; Usdin et al., 2000; Weldon, 2002). Nonetheless, most studies on VAW policy implementation emphasize the role of women’s movements and grassroot advocacy in putting these laws into practice (see Medie, 2013; Montoya, 2013; Usdin, et al., 2000; Weldon, 2002). Social movements affect both top-down processes and bottom-up efforts to translate VAW policies into meaningful practices. More specifically, Medie (2013: 396) identifies two conditions that enable women’s movements to impact the implementation process: a relatively open political environment and political and material support from international organizations.

What factors gain prominence in the implementation process in relatively closed political systems like those of the Middle East where militarized logics animate policies? Scholars suggest that the sociocultural and political context within which women experience violence – and in which women’s and feminist movements operate – shapes the debates, discussions, and avenues for change (Montoya, 2013; Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 1999).

Writing on Palestine, Shalhoub-Kevorkian (1999) shows that implementing domestic violence policies has proved challenging because of conflicting views between policymakers and community members about family and gender roles, disagreements about violence as a public or private concern, and the politicization of the law in the context of Israeli occupation (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 1999). Moreover, Sharoni (1993: 21) concludes that ‘the institutionalization of “national security” as a top priority in Israel contributes to gender inequalities on the one hand, and legitimizes violence against Palestinians and women on the other.’ These observations further substantiate the importance of integrating feminist IR scholarship into analyses of policy processes; the continuum of violence reveals the gendered consequences of occupation and national security pursuits that manifest in inequitable laws and norms around VAW.

The aforementioned literature helps us understand many aspects of the gender policymaking process in Jordan. On the one hand, it highlights the role of feminist and women’s movements in implementing VAW policies. It also clarifies the importance of street-level bureaucrats and institutions for policy implementation. On the other hand, this body of literature has not meaningfully interrogated the effects of militarism and security discourses that feminist IR scholars have identified as critical factors in social and political life. I contend that staying attuned to militaristic discourses and practices – particularly masculine protection and the continuum of violence – will produce a more complete picture of the gender policymaking process. Such an analysis, as I demonstrate in following sections, shows how international pressure and national security (i.e., state-centric) practices combine with domestic conservatism to produce unintended consequences: ineffective VAW policies that are minimally implemented.

As the literature establishes, applying a feminist IR lens to the gender policymaking process illuminates militaristic practices, negotiations, and power arrangements that reify the masculine protection racket and, subsequently, perpetuate structural, economic, political, and institutional forms of violence. Policy implementation is a ‘visible measure of government activity’ (Dye, 1992: 354), making it a useful site for investigating how the state might perpetuate male power and violence through formal practices that maintain women in subordinate positions.

In the following sections, I turn to my qualitative case study of Jordan. I first discuss the details of the 2008 FPL, then I discuss how I measure policy implementation based on the tenets of the law. I then turn to the case study. Drawing on data from 85 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2015–2016, 2019, and 2023, as well as field notes, supplemental data from newspapers, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs), I analyze the extent to which the law has been implemented and the ways in which masculine protection and the continuum of violence underscore the patterns of (non-)implementation.

Jordan, militarism, and VAW policymaking

Jordan is one of the most artificial states in the Middle East, and the earliest rulers worked hard to forge the concept of a legitimate, ‘unique’ Jordan within which the heterogenous groups in the newly formed state could find their own national identity; the military became a key site for cultivating and transmitting this new Jordanian identity (Massad, 2001). The military remade Bedouin Arab soldiers in the likeness of appropriately masculine colonial soldiers (Jabiri, 2016; Massad, 2001). This militarized masculinity was instilled in Jordanian identity and persists to this day, with the king and the military representing the ideal masculinity in Jordan (Mahadeen, 2021). Queen Rania, meanwhile, embodies ideal femininity, serving as a mother to the nation and a supportive wife to the king (see Haddad, 2016).

As Mahadeen (2021: 376) notes: the ‘traditional veneration of the Armed Forces and the king as a father figure and supreme commander are features of contemporary Jordanian sociopolitical life’ (see Hasso, 2005; Ryan, 2018). In his patriarchal capacity, the king is ultimately responsible for protecting state (read: regime) stability (Mahadeen, 2021; see also Young, 2003). This arrangement requires constituents to relinquish some of their liberties in exchange for the protection from all manner of threats. And indeed, as threats have changed and multiplied both without and within, civil liberties like freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been revoked in the name of protecting the state (Ryan, 2018; Schwedler, 2022). This aligns with patterns that Young (2003) described in her theorization of the gendered logic of masculine protection.

The gendered logic of protection is not only incarnated by the role of the regime in the state, but is also exemplified by women’s relationship to the state (Jabiri, 2016; see Aldoughli, 2019). Masculine protection of women is enshrined in Jordanian law and perpetuated in society (Brand, 1998; Hasso, 2005). The Personal Status Law, which applies to all Muslims, prohibits unmarried women under the age of 30 from entering into a valid marriage contract without the consent of their guardian, normally the woman’s father, her brother, or someone else in her patriliny (see Jabiri, 2016). Social norms reinforce masculine protection; as a representative from the FPD explained: ‘Jordan is a tribal society and has its own traditions. We have a system of guardianship over women, we are not like other countries where women are able at a certain age to leave their families and live alone’ (quoted in Amnesty International, 2019: 32). Similar to the king’s role vis-à-vis his constituents, ‘it is the father’s role to take care of his daughter and know what she is doing at all times’ (Director of the Human Rights Department, Ministry of the Interior, quoted in Amnesty International, 2019: 33). In this way, women are subject to male control and surveillance, ostensibly for their own protection (Jabiri, 2016). It is against this backdrop that the FPL was adopted and the context in which the policy is being implemented.

Adopting the FPL

Previous work detailed the evolution of the FPL in Jordan and showed that Jordan’s militaristic interests both at home and abroad underscored its commitment to institutionalizing a VAW policy and shaped the final outcome of the bill (Forester, 2019). The VAW bill was negotiated in the early 2000s – a time when Jordan faced both internal and external security threats including the Iraq war, the second intifada in Palestine, and domestic protests against austerity measures. In 2005, suicide bombers affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq (a predecessor to the Islamic State group) attacked three hotels in Amman, marking the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history (Ryan, 2018). Following this attack, Jordan strengthened its partnership with the USA in the Global War on Terror, a deeply unpopular move in the kingdom (Ryan, 2018).

Part of the regime’s strategy for ensuring that conservative factions would support its controversial foreign policy initiatives was to take a more tempered approach to VAW initiatives when addressing domestic audiences. For example, at international events Queen Rania spoke of gender equality and the importance of advancing the status of women. Speaking at the United Nations (UN) Foundation, for instance, Queen Rania emphasized the need for women to ‘have a choice and a voice in decision making for their families’ (C-SPAN, 2008: n.p.). At home, however, she emphasized family reconciliation as the primary avenue for combating VAW: she implored lawmakers to institutionalize family protection through codified laws because ‘the family unit is the most important component of our society and we must work hard to protect our children and women’ (Office of Her Majesty Queen Rania, 2007; emphasis added). In this statement, Queen Rania cites the Jordanian Constitution, which establishes the family as the basis of society, and explicitly invokes masculine protection. The regime, in its capacity as masculine provider, perpetuates the idea that stable societies need stable families; women are lumped together with children – womenandchildren (Enloe, 2014) – an infantilizing move that signals women’s vulnerability and validates the need for a strong protector.

Another incident further substantiates the temperamental relationship between the monarchy and women’s rights. In August 2003, the lower house voted against amendments to the Personal Status Law and on a policy that would allow Jordanian women to pass citizenship to their children, rather than limiting that right to Jordanian men (Husseini, 2021: 98; Ryan and Schwedler, 2004). Before the vote, both the king and queen publicly supported these policies, yet, afterward, neither vocally opposed the parliamentarians’ decision (Ryan and Schwedler, 2004). King Abdullah II has followed in the path of his father in this regard; both King Hussein and King Abdullah II made arrangements with conservative parliamentarians that afforded them outsized influence on social and cultural issues – including women’s issues – in exchange for their support on foreign policy issues (Baylouny, 2008; Clark, 2007; Ryan and Schwedler, 2004). These tradeoffs lay bare the priorities of the regime: gender policies that elevate women as autonomous actors do not take precedence over foreign policy or national security interests (Forester, 2019).

Positioning gender justice as less relevant than national security interests is one way that militarism gives force to gendered processes. The regime makes strategic decisions about its priorities and, conversely, what it deems trivial or inconsequential. Women’s empowerment and bodily autonomy matter for Queen Rania when she is addressing international organizations. Domestically, the emphasis is on protecting families, a shift that becomes even more salient as we consider the tenets of the law itself, and how it is implemented.

The law on the books: reviewing the 2008 FPL

The final version of the FPL¹ was published in the National Gazette, thus making it an official legal policy, on 16 March 2008 and is comprised of 21 articles. The law emphasizes reconciliation among family members and goes so far as to specify that ‘preference shall be given to referrals to Family Reconciliation Committees prior to taking any of the protective measure stipulated in this law, providing that the best interests of the family are taken into consideration’ (FPL No. 6 of Jordan 2008, Article 7). The articles establish that police, upon responding to a family violence call, may take a promissory note from the respondent (i.e., the person inflicting harm) pledging not to harm the family members or the injured party, or the police may put the respondent in custody for the protection of the family. The respondent can be barred from entering the home for no more than 48 hours, and may be held in custody for no more than 24 hours.

The law goes on to stipulate that renewable restraining orders may be issued, but not for longer than six months. If the restraining order is unintentionally broken, the court may detain the respondent for up to a week. If, however, the respondent intentionally violates the restraining order, the court may issue a fine of 100JD (approximately US$140) and/or imprison him/her for up to six months. Repeated intentional violations of the protective order will result in imprisonment for three days to six months, or a 200JD (approximately US$280) fine. The law also indicates that injured parties may seek financial compensation under certain circumstances, as a recompense for abuse. Any institution that provides services to victims of family violence is required to report the case to the police.

Importantly, the law only covers violence that happens within the family home, and ‘family members’ are those limited to the individuals residing in the home together. The narrow definition of family members effectively excludes relatives who live elsewhere, as well as other individuals – like domestic workers – who live within the home but are not part of the family. Further, the law does not clearly define either ‘domestic violence’ or ‘violence against women,’ but instead leaves the violence up to the interpretation of judges. Lastly, the law indicates which institutions are implicated in upholding the law – the Public Security Directorate, the Ministry of Social Development, and Family Reconciliation Committees – but it does not specify the duties of these departments or the protocols that each should follow (see Jabiri, 2016).

Measuring implementation

When it comes to policy implementation, the laws on the books dictate which institutions and/or mechanisms of enforcement are involved in implementing the policy (Blofield and Haas, 2013). For example, if a law criminalizes domestic violence, then courts and judicial systems will be involved in implementing the law. If, however, a law establishes that police should issue restraining orders or remove perpetrators from their homes, then implementation will require the allocation of funds for police services and training (Blofield and Haas, 2013; see also Winter, 2003). We must look to the law itself to understand how to operationalize and measure policy implementation (Medie, 2015; Usdin, et al., 2000).

Unlike policy adoption, where outcomes are clearly defined and observed, implementation is less easily tracked and measured. Further, the unclear definitions and poorly specified requirements for action within the FPL make evaluating its implementation difficult. Bearing this in mind, I analyze the implementation of the FPL by examining: (a) the expansion of FPDs; (b) the establishment of family reconciliation committees; and (c) any government supported training sessions that teach first responders how to adhere to the provisions of the law when dealing with cases of family violence. Both the spread of specialized police departments and the creation of family reconciliation committees are central tenets of the FPL. If these institutions have spread and flourished in the years since the adoption of the FPL, then this suggests that two main institutional goals of the policy have been achieved. By evaluating FPL training sessions, I endeavor to capture the degree to which the policy adoption precipitated changes in protocols for first responders.

Implementing the law in a different security context – 2008 and beyond

In the years since the FPL was adopted in 2008, the security context in Jordan has dramatically changed. The Arab uprisings of 2011 left the region ablaze: By 2013, the security state had made a powerful comeback in Egypt, the Syrian war raged on, and Iraq descended into violence and civil strife (Ryan, 2018). The fallout from neighboring wars included a surge of refugees, with more than a million Syrians fleeing to Jordan, exacerbating economic woes in the kingdom. Domestically, the regime weathered its own Arab spring protests, in part by advancing a narrative that the monarchy was attuned to public demands for reform (Ryan, 2018) and in part by violent repression (Schwedler, 2022). As Ryan (2018: 176) observes, ‘even for Jordan—a country that has managed to survive countless regional crises in its more than seventy-year history—the era that followed the Arab uprisings seemed especially dire.’

The rise of the Islamic State group (ISIS) and jihadist threats across the region punctuate this post-Arab spring era. To aid in the fight against ISIS, the Jordanian parliament modified a controversial counterterrorism law in June 2014 that gave the state sweeping powers to take action against citizens deemed supportive of terrorist groups, including in online commentary (Ryan, 2018). The 2015 Cybercrimes Law (amended in 2019) purportedly criminalized hate speech, but, in practice, it enabled the state to search any device, computer, or phone; to surveil and punish political speech in the virtual arena; and to generally silence and intimidate activists (Schwedler, 2022). Further, in August 2014, parliamentarians voted to consolidate more power with the king. They gave Abdullah II full authority to appoint top security and defense officials, including heads of the mukhabarat and the Jordanian Armed Forces (Ryan, 2018). This decision removed oversight of the leaders of critical security and defense institutions, even as the regime’s rhetoric advanced a vision of Jordan that included democratically elected parliamentary governments (Ryan, 2018). In short, the regime has ‘doubl[ed] down’ (Abu Rish, 2017: n.p.) on authoritarianism in the period after the Arab uprisings.

Although the 2006 Law of Associations contributed to the stifling of civil society space in Jordan, the Political Parties Law (passed in 2015), the Cybercrimes Law, and counterterrorism policies and practices have shrunk the civil society space even more (Abu Rish, 2017; Sander, 2023; Schwedler, 2022; see also Wiktorowicz, 2000). Together, these policies and practices served to further broaden control of the Jordanian state, control the state has violently enforced: ‘The net effect [of regulating and surveilling community organizations] has been a series of arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of dissidents, activists, journalists, editors, and laypersons’ (Abu Rish, 2017: n.p.). The regime ‘tightens the screws’ in other, more subtle ways, too (Sander, 2023). As an INGO worker explained:

The changing regulations within ministries is one of the tools the government uses to shrink the space. Previously, you would apply for a permit and if you didn’t hear back in sixty days, you could just go ahead with your project. Now, no way. You need three months or more to get approval. It’s a diplomatic way to slow down or stop what’s not in line with the government. (Interview 10; see also Sander, 2023)

What is more, this intense governmental oversight influences the kinds of projects that women’s rights organizations will pursue given that some projects are more likely to be approved by the state than are others (Sander, 2023). Additionally, the narrative that Jordan is ‘forever on the brink’ (Abu Rish, 2017: n.p.) reinforces the idea that activists and citizens need to acquiesce to, and even appreciate, the regime’s security tactics; many of my interlocuters emphasized how activists are pressured to stay in line ‘or else Jordan could become the next Syria’ (interview 1; interview 4).

Amidst this clamping down on civil society, reform setbacks, and the deeper entrenchment of the security state, the way that gender policies like the FPL are implemented becomes particularly relevant. Tracking how the state takes action on the FPL will give us greater insight into the regime’s priorities and commitments and reveals how state stability and security are intrinsically linked to the subordinate status of women.

Evaluating implementation

Immediately following the adoption of the FPL in March 2008, the Ministry of Social Development launched a nationwide effort to raise awareness about the law. Through a series of informational sessions held in various cities around the country, representatives from the ministry explained the tenets of the law and the options victims had for reporting abuse and seeking reconciliation; it also encouraged civic engagement to combat familial violence. Activists, however, raised questions about the utility of these sessions because the infrastructure and programs – that is, well-trained police officers, medical professionals, and FPDs – were not yet established in all the governorates (interview 3).

Notably, the law only continued the expansion of the FPDs, it did not initiate this program. The Public Security Directorate established the first FPD in 1997. Centered in Amman, the FPD was the first police department in the Middle East that specialized in investigating and combating family violence (Public Security Directorate, n.d.). By 2005, two more FPDs had opened in the governorates just south of Amman: Madaba and Karak. FPDs continued to grow after the adoption of the law in 2008; by June 2010, seven more FPDs were operating around the country. The government opened the most recent FPD in Ajloun in 2018, bringing the number of protection departments to 17 (Prieto, 2018; interview 8).

The National Council for Family Affairs regularly touts the importance and the work of these departments regionally and internationally. They host training sessions for other police units from the region and have traveled to a number of international conferences explaining the work that they undertake in the kingdom. In 2003, The Family Protection Project Management Team won the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights in honor of their work to ‘promote open discussion of such taboo subjects as domestic violence, gender equality, and other human rights issues) (UN, 2003).

The FPDs are perhaps the most important institution for upholding the provisions of the FPL. FPDs respond to reports of family violence, issue protective orders, and, in general, act as the first point of contact for those seeking help with family violence issues. But, by its very nature, having the police department as the first point of contact for victims of violence deters many women from seeking help (see also Medie, 2015; Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 1999). According to a national survey from 2018, less than 3% of women who experience physical violence sought help from the police (Department of Statistics (DOS) and ICF, 2019). Survivors expressed anxiety about going to the police department because they perceived the police as biased against their claims.

Additionally, many women did not want to seek out punitive measures for the violence; they simply wanted protection from harm. Yet the law obliges service providers to inform the police. And even if women sought protection at one of the three women’s shelters in the country before going to the police, the shelters would still have to refer them to the FPD or risk losing funding (interview 3). Mandatory reporting is one of the most contested – and often reviled – aspects of the policy. Activists and women’s rights practitioners have argued that mandatory reporting is a real barrier to women accessing help and services; as one lawyer explained: ‘this provision mandates an action within a system that has harmful ramifications’ (interview 9).

Survivors overwhelmingly reported feeling afraid of going to the police because, once they reported the abuse, they had to return home (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Shadow Report, 2017). Further, much like the law itself, communities stress reconciliation between family members, rather than addressing the abuser (interview 5). Lastly, when women do make claims of abuse, members of the judicial system are similarly pressured to drop the cases or reject the claims of the women (CEDAW Shadow Report, 2017).

The perception that the FPDs lack either the will or the capacity to follow through on violence claims is not unwarranted. Although the FPDs act as the first point of contact, according to the law, the FPDs and courts should pass domestic violence cases to family protection committees for further action. However, an adequate number of these committees have not yet been formed so cases often remain open and unsettled for years. There are only five committees for the entire country and they were all formed in 2010 (al-Bass, 2014). The vague parameters of the law have stagnated action on establishing the committees. Reem Abu Hassan, the former Minister of Social Development, contends that ‘the formation of family reconciliation committees is not a job for our general execution. The existing Code of Criminal Procedure allocates family reconciliation responsibilities to the judiciary and the public prosecutor’ (quoted in al-Bass, 2014: n.p.). FPD representatives argued that the lack of action stemmed from the fact that there is no system in place to select the committee members, nor is there an agreed upon timeline for putting the committees in place (quoted in al-Bas, 2014, n.p.).

Other indicators besides the establishment of family reconciliation committees also suggest that the FPL has been unevenly implemented. Speaking at the recently opened FPD in Ajloun, UNICEF’s chief of child protection observed that ‘when VAW and [violence against children] cases are reported to the governor, the solution is to make perpetrators sign a pledge not to commit violence again, but in most cases, the attacks continue’ (quoted in Prieto, 2018: n.p.). Moreover, a lawyer working with the local women’s organizations explained that women are expected to seek shelter elsewhere because it is socially unacceptable for men to be expelled from their homes (interview 6).

Finally, activists report that no formal, consistent training takes place between the police units and NGOs. INGOs provide training to staff members of local NGOs who may come into contact with women seeking services related to family violence. But, again, because NGOs are required to inform the police if an issue of family violence arises, training only NGO staff members has a limited effect. Moreover, widespread training for medical professionals is nonexistent (interview 7). Rana, a Jordanian woman working in the field of women’s rights with a major international institution, explains some of the problems she encountered because of poorly trained medical personnel when reporting her abuse to the FPD:

I was sitting in this little place and then I had to be checked by two forensic doctors. And they were there, and one was a woman and the other was a male. And I said I don’t want to be touched by a man and she says no, no, no, you have to. You have to be checked by two doctors and I’m the only female doctor in Jordan and he’s the other doctor and he has to. And I told them okay, I don’t feel comfortable and she said you have to. Imagine. Out of trauma and then having a man touching you . . . even the female wasn’t professional. She was asking me, ah, did you do the breast surgery? (Interview 4)

Recent developments suggest that some progress is being made with regard to standardizing responses for survivors of family violence. In September of 2020, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Council for Family Affairs published a manual for workers who engage with survivors of family violence. Notably, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior, Khaled Abu Hammour, emphasized that these institutionalization procedures ‘served the supreme interest of the state’ and necessarily attend to ‘the peculiarities of all segments of society’ (National Council for Family Affairs, 2020: n.p.). These subtle remarks signal a commitment to addressing family violence because it enhances state interests, while still allowing leeway for practices – ‘peculiarities’ – that likely violate the law. In many ways, then, the manual and its presentation to the public follow the model set by the monarchy: support and promote women’s rights, but only insofar as those rights bolster state stability and provide a loophole for conservative blocs and factions to interpret their reach and application.

Tracing the long reach of militarism

By examining the expansion of FPDs, the establishment of family reconciliation committees, and any government-supported training sessions that teach first responders how to adhere to the provisions of the law when dealing with cases of family violence, we can conclude that implementation has been partial at best. Where policy outcomes intersect with the state’s domestic and international interests – UN awards, European Union (EU) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding – some degree of implementation occurs. But, at the street level, where women are most directly impacted on a day-to-day basis, implementation is poor.

But where is the militarism in all of this? I contend that the militarized logics that animate why the regime took action on women’s rights when it did – to generate international praise and to temper conservative opposition – similarly inform why and how the policy has been implemented thus far. Throughout the policymaking process, the state emphasized national security and state stability, and the VAW policy serves this mission in a very particular way: state stability is equated with strong families, and strong families require male guardianship and control of women. The way the FPL has been written and implemented strengthens gender(ed) hierarchies that are predicated on feminized vulnerability and masculine protection; attempts at reforming the policy to grant greater autonomy to women is met with intense opposition which is justified on the basis of state stability. Were the policy to elevate women as autonomous, capable actors, this would undermine the masculine protection racket and disrupt patterns of guardianship that institutionalize male power and privilege. Destabilizing the myth of male protection would also work against an authoritarian regime that has endeavored to validate the idea that Jordanians, writ large, need a strong protector to make unilateral decisions on their behalf.

Moreover, feminist activists and women’s rights practitioners, actors identified as uniquely important in VAW policy processes (Htun and Weldon, 2018; Medie, 2015; Montoya, 2013; Weldon, 2002), are not inoculated against or immune from Jordan’s continuum of violence. Activists and women’s rights practitioners are subjected to intense scrutiny, surveillance, and, like many other progressive movements in Jordan, repression. Threats, subtle warnings, and the general surveillance of feminist activism serve to keep movements in check. Activists face violence, repression, and scrutiny from the regime. One group was expected to provide security forces with the names of anyone who attends its workshops or events (interview 9), while another feminist organization had its files and computers raided by the mukhabarat (interview 3). These martial practices have a chilling effect on the women’s movement and push many activists to censor themselves out of fear of repercussions. A feminist lawyer explained that ‘there’s generally a sense that the regime is keeping people in check. I’ve toned my own work down a lot, I have two kids . . . I have to keep them and myself safe’ (interview 9).

The FPL, as it is currently applied and understood, is crucial to state stability, so those who oppose it must (logically) prefer to usher in state instability. As mentioned previously, the common refrain that activists hear from opponents is that they should temper their demands and engage in less-confrontational forms of activism lest ‘Jordan becomes the Syria’ (interview 1; interview 4). This narrative reinforces the idea that Jordan’s stable existence hinges in part on women’s civil society staying in line, on women serving in their traditional roles. Radical demands will lead to chaos and civil war.

Relatedly, the state also uses its control of civil society to shape the kinds of policies that feminist activists can pursue. Prior to the adoption of the FPL, activists initially wanted to pursue a policy on gender-based violence, but, in the end, decided to frame the bill around family violence, conceding that the state and society were not ready to engage with the question of gender-based violence (interview 1; see also Forester, 2019). This trend continues; as an INGO worker explained in 2019: ‘There are so many small regulations . . . The government refused our projects that had the word “gender” in the title. So, we changed the title of the projects to match with the interests of the government and now they [have] approved it’ (interview 10). In short, the law that was finally adopted reflects the regime’s interests more than the demands of feminist activists and women’s movement actors (see Forester, 2019), and this pattern continues in policy implementation. Simply put, the FPL is shaped by the regime’s security practices that ultimately prioritize the survival of state and necessitate the subordination of women.

Conclusion

Analytically, I have demonstrated how the patterns of implementation reflect the state’s primary goal of regime stability and security. The most implemented aspect of the policy is the continued expansion of FPDs. These institutions signal Jordan’s democratic commitment to liberal norms regarding VAW, strengthening the regime’s narrative that it is a good actor in a bad neighborhood, even as the state engages in greater authoritarian and anti-democratic practices.

Beyond the FPDs, however, implementation is minimal. The process whereby family reconciliation committees are established is vague and underdeveloped, while training for first responders happens in an ad hoc manner. The minimal implementation of aspects of the policy that center on women’s rights and needs reflects the regime’s bargains with conservative groups as well as the myth that a strong Jordanian state requires particular patriarchal familial arrangements. The FPL in its current form and application does little to undermine formal and informal norms around male protection and guardianship that undercut women’s autonomy and agency. This is exacerbated by the specter of (inter)national security threats that cultivates a fear around challenging inequitable structures that are framed as integral to state stability.

Feminist IR interventions, as I have shown in this paper, allow us to forge connections between the regime’s violent maintenance of ‘order,’ its authoritarian practices, and the continued preservation of gender hierarchies. Battles and negotiations over how a state takes action on women’s rights, in practice, are neither irrelevant to nor divorced from its national security interests and pursuits. Indeed, as Enloe (2014) teaches us, a lot of gendered power is required to sustain the ‘normal’ workings of both international and domestic politics.

Most often, when we think about how women experience militarism, we tend to focus on violence that erupts during war and conflict, or perhaps on the decreased capacity of the state to address basic needs like food, shelter, and clean water. What I have endeavored to do in this analysis is consider some of the more subtle, but no less meaningful, ways that militarism affects women’s lives. Moreover, by grounding my analysis of the VAW policy in feminist IR frameworks, I hope to reveal critical patterns that offer gender and politics scholars a deeper understanding of why and how VAW policies may or may not generate change.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am thankful for all of my interlocuters in Jordan who graciously shared their time and expertise with me; without them, my research would not be possible. Additionally, I am grateful for the feedback that I received from all the contributors to this special issue, Nermin Allam, and other participants in the 2022 Gender and Politics in the MENA Conference, hosted by the Program on Governance and Local Development at the University of Gothenburg. Finally, I am indebted to Theresa Reidy and the anonymous reviewers who provided thorough, thoughtful, and constructive comments that immensely strengthened my paper.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research for this article was funded, in part, by Carleton College’s Faculty Development Endowment grant and the Class of 1949 Endowed Fund for Faculty Development.

ORCID iD

Summer Forester

Notes

Interviews cited

Actual names withheld to protect the anonymity of my interlocutors. All interviews were conducted in Amman, Jordan.

1. Interview with former governmental minister and former director of an international women’s rights organization, 10 October 2016

2. Interview with democracy activist, 17 July 2016

3. Interview with senior activist and current director of a domestic women’s rights organization, 29 June 2016

4. Interview with women’s rights practitioner who is affiliated with an INGO, 20 October 2016

5. Interview with parliamentarian, 21 May 2016

6. Interview with local lawyer and women’s rights practitioner, 20 May 2016

7. Interview with activist and journalist, 20 October 2016

8. Interview with National Council of Family Affairs official, 16 March 2023

9. Interview with local lawyer and women’s rights practitioner, 13 March 2023

10. Interview with a women’s rights practitioner who is affiliated with an INGO, 17 April 2019

Author biography

Summer Forester is an assistant professor of Political Science and International Relations at Carleton College, where she teaches courses on International Relations, global gender politics, and feminist security studies. Previously, she held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Purdue Policy Research Institute where she worked on a Gates Foundation funded research project investigating the links between feminist mobilization and economic empowerment. Her other areas of research include feminist analyses of militarism, gender justice, the continuum of violence, and gender policymaking in the Middle East, specifically in Jordan. Her work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Politics & Gender, Perspectives on Politics, and Security Dialogue.

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