ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical context to the main challenges faced by the regime during the first two decades after independence in 1946. It also provides a background analysis to the birth and evolution of Jordan’s most organized and enduring Islamic movement, The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), with special emphasis on its relationship with the Jordanian regime. The chapter analyses the main developments and challenges during 1970–1988. It focuses on the 1989–2010 period, with special emphasis on the process of political opening that started in 1989, the response of the MB to the democratization process and how that response changed the nature of the movement’s relationship with the monarchy and other ideologically driven groups, which began to emerge in the early 1990s and thereafter. The chapter explores the evolution of the Jihadist Salafist movement in Jordan, as well as to national, regional and global factors that influenced its emergence in the country.
