Parliaments and Monarchies: Blame Avoidance in the Authoritarian Context Público
Farkouh, Tara (Spring 2021)
Published
Abstract
Why have half of Kuwait’s parliamentary sessions in the past sixty years been dissolved early? Why has Jordan experienced fourteen prime ministers in the past twenty-one years since King Abdullah II ascended to the throne? Over the past several decades there have been various instances of authoritarian monarchs interfering in established institutions, despite evidence suggesting such authoritarian institutions can be beneficial to autocrats. This paper explores this puzzle and attempts to answer the question of why monarchs sometimes choose to intervene in parliamentary politics. This paper uses blame avoidance theory and argues that a monarch may choose to interfere in parliament to signal to the public that intermediary political institutions and individuals are to blame for their grievances, thus allowing the monarch to avoid the public’s blame and its associated costs. This theory is studied through qualitative text analysis, using process tracing and focusing on the case of Jordan. Specifically, this paper explores a potential correlation between protest size and issue, and monarchical interference. The results provide no support for a correlation between protest size and monarchical interference. However, the findings lend some support to the expectation that political and economic protest issues are more likely to result in monarchical interference, relative to socially-motivated protests. This paper also inductively addresses unexpected trends concerning blame avoidance language, references to the regional context, and perceptions of authoritarian institutions in Jordan.
Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................1
Literature Review .......................................................................................................................4
Authoritarian Institutions ...........................................................................................................4
Monarchies ................................................................................................................................6
Monarchical Intervention in Parliamentary Politics .......................................................................8
Theory .......................................................................................................................................9
The Kingdom of Morocco.............................................................................................................9
Blame Avoidance ......................................................................................................................12
Blame Avoidance in a Monarchy .................................................................................................15
Hypotheses ..............................................................................................................................17
Scope Conditions ......................................................................................................................19
Case Selection & Introduction ...................................................................................................20
Research Design & Methodology................................................................................................22
Independent Variables: Protests ................................................................................................22
Dependent Variable: Monarchical Interference ...........................................................................24
Process Tracing ........................................................................................................................24
Within-Case Selection ..............................................................................................................26
Defining Protests & Protest Periods ...........................................................................................27
Selection Criteria .....................................................................................................................28
Case Descriptions ....................................................................................................................30
Most Likely, Case 1 ..................................................................................................................30
Most Likely, Case 2 ..................................................................................................................31
Least Likely, Case 1 .................................................................................................................32
Least Likely, Case 2 .................................................................................................................32
Results & Discussion ..............................................................................................................33
Evidence of Blame...................................................................................................................34
Protesters’ Demands ...............................................................................................................35
Theory of Responsiveness .......................................................................................................36
Blame Avoidance Examples .....................................................................................................38
Inductive Reasoning ...............................................................................................................41
Language Variation .................................................................................................................41
Regional Context ....................................................................................................................43
Authoritarian Institutions .......................................................................................................46
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................47
Works Cited ............................................................................................................................49
Appendix A: Structure of Jordan’s Government .........................................................................59
Appendix B: Process Tracing Table ...........................................................................................60
Appendix C: Methodology ........................................................................................................61
Appendix D: Table of Texts ......................................................................................................65
Appendix E: Qualitative Coding Variables .................................................................................83
Appendix F: Comparing Protests ..............................................................................................85
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