The Hashemite Kingdom’s stability hinges on navigating domestic overhaul amid regional upheaval. This analysis examines Jordan’s economic strains, political recalibrations, and border dynamics to assess five potential trajectories for its fragile equilibrium.
The Hashemite Kingdom’s stability is now contingent on navigating a domestic overhaul while regional tectonic plates shift violently around it. Jordan’s delicate path requires reimagining a social contract fractured by economic strain and digital-age aspirations, yet this delicate path also demands recalibrating ties with a transformed Syria and an unpredictable Israel to prevent internal fractures from becoming existential.
Jordan’s delicate path in domestic balance
Jordan is in the throes of a highly sensitive phase that is reshaping both its relationship with its surroundings and its domestic makeup. In the context of an ongoing regional escalation, including the fallout from conflicts in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran, along with the transformation of Syria following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 and the subsequent reconfiguration of its neighborhood, the Kingdom is facing a persistent test of its ability to maintain its domestic balance and political stability. To understand this phase, it is essential to trace the connections linking domestic demands, which are testing the limits of state institutions, to rapid shifts in the structure of society and Jordan’s political economy.
It is clear that the pressures facing Amman are not merely the exogenous consequences of regional developments. Rather, they are intertwined with domestic dynamics involving emerging social forces, digital transformations, and the shifting roles of political movements, tribal structures, and economic actors. Consequently, maintaining stability remains a central, ongoing mission for the political system.
These challenges culminated in two significant developments in 2025 that redefined the domestic equation: the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood in April and the recalibration of the country’s northern border with the “new” Syria. This situation assessment examines these intertwined dynamics and seeks to plot their potential trajectories in the period ahead.
Reshaping Jordan’s delicate path socially
Jordanian society is undergoing transformations so profound that they necessitate a re-evaluation of the very concept of stability. The traditional social contract is suffering from rapid erosion, coinciding with the growing fragility of the middle class, a historic safety valve for the regime. This erosion is being exacerbated by rapid urbanization, long-term unemployment, inflation, and the state’s diminishing ability to provide public-sector employment.
These factors are creating developmental disparities between the center (around the capital, Amman) and the periphery, despite public policies aimed at mitigating them. Meanwhile, young generations have emerged as the largest demographic bloc; with around 66% of the population aged under 30. Members of this group have a worldview shaped by the digital engagement, raising their aspirations for participation and economic advancement beyond traditional, bureaucratic frameworks.
Furthermore, successive regional crises, particularly Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023 and the accompanying escalation in the West Bank, have reignited cautious debates about the relationship between Jordan’s domestic demographic balance and the Palestinian cause.
This question transcends foreign affairs, cutting to the heart of Jordanian national security; as many Jordanians have genuine concerns over scenarios of forced displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank, whether through “soft” or “hard” means, or the revival of the so-called “Jordanian option,” whereby the country is treated as an “alternative homeland” for the Palestinians.
The Kingdom navigates this sensitive issue with extreme caution to ensure domestic cohesion and to prevent crises being instrumentalized to fuel polarization, particularly during massive popular rallies held in Amman and the provinces in solidarity with Gaza. While these demonstrations reflected a unified public sentiment, they also presented the authorities with the challenge of managing the intensity of the protests.
This context has also brought to the fore the question of Jordan’s custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Israel’s unilateral measures at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts to alter the status quo have placed this role under direct pressure, rendering it no longer merely a diplomatic issue but a pillar of the Jordanian state’s regional role and its national security. Any encroachment upon this role immediately translates into domestic tension, politically and among the public.
Economic strains on Jordan’s delicate path
Jordan’s economic model, which has historically relied on foreign aid, borrowing, and expatriate remittances, faces structural challenges to its sustainability and to its capacity to create jobs. The contours of the crisis are evident in official indicators:
Unemployment. The headline joblessness rate stood at 16.1% in the first quarter of 2026, according to the Department of Statistics, while the rate among Jordanians aged 15 and above was 21.1%, rising to approximately 32.7% among Jordanian women. Youth unemployment (ages 15–24) remains high, at around 39%; this represents structural unemployment arising from a mismatch between educational outcomes and labor market demands. These figures have coincided with rising rates of poverty, with unofficial estimates indicating that poverty rates exceed the 20% threshold in some governorates and peripheral areas.
Public debt and growth. Jordan’s public debt reached some 35.8 billion dinars (about 93% of Gross Domestic Product) in early 2025, a figure the government, backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), aims to reduce to 80% by 2028. This comes against a backdrop of modest GDP growth of around 2.7% (with inflation stable at around 2%), a rate insufficient to generate enough jobs to meet demographic growth. This places the state budget under constant pressure to service its debt and constrains its fiscal policy. The IMF completed its Fourth Review under the Extended Fund Facility in December 2025, alongside its first review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangements, worth $700 million.
The burdens of hosting refugees and water scarcity. Jordan’s demographic and financial pressures are coming to a head. The Kingdom hosts approximately 1.3 million Syrian refugees, 506,000 of whom were registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, as of August 2025.
While some 75,500 Syrian refugees returned from Jordan to Syria between December 2024 and May 2025, UNHCR is not encouraging large-scale returns due to ongoing uncertainty, and the majority of refugees do not intend to go home for now. This is in addition to more than 2.39 million Palestinians registered with the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and hundreds of thousands of refugees of various other nationalities. All this comes on top of one of the world’s most severe water crises: per capita water availability has dropped to approximately 60 cubic meters annually. This places immense chronic pressure on other sectors such as health, education, and municipalities, particularly in the northern governorates (Mafraq and Irbid) and in Amman.
Decisions such as altering income tax rules and raising fuel and electricity prices, based on IMF recommendations, have in the past led directly to labor protests, including by truck drivers, sometimes in specific localities such as Ma’an and Karak. This demonstrates the link between economic decisions and social stability. Addressing the intertwined interests of the public and private sectors, as well as integrating the informal economy, are two fundamental prerequisites for expanding opportunities and alleviating the pressures of rising living costs.
Jordan’s delicate path through political change
Despite the launch of a process of political modernization and the enactment of new laws on political parties and elections, which allocated seats for a national party list, a debate is still underway over whether these mechanisms can produce policy-oriented elites capable of influencing decision-making. Historically, Jordan’s governance structure has been characterized by a high degree of flexibility in managing the relationship between the monarchy and political and sovereign institutions, and societal structures, even amid a persistent need to deepen the channels of national partnership.
This reached a critical turning point last year. On April 23, 2025, the Jordanian authorities banned the Muslim Brotherhood and confiscated its assets, following the arrest of 16 individuals accused of receiving training and funding in Lebanon and of plotting missile and drone attacks in the Kingdom. Although the group had been dissolved in 2020 by a court order that had not been enforced, the 2025 decision fully implemented the ban, closed the group’s offices, and criminalized the promotion of its ideology. Subsequently, the group announced its own dissolution, while its political wing, the Islamic Action Front, remained legally intact as an independent entity.
This came after the Islamic Action Front secured 31 out of 138 parliamentary seats in September 2024 elections, its strongest showing in decades, building on its popular base in Amman, Zarqa, and Irbid as well as the momentum of solidarity with Gaza.
Observers have viewed the decision to ban the group as part of a local context with historical precedents, yet it was carefully calibrated against a sensitive regional and international backdrop. Alongside the Brotherhood, Jordan is also home to a socially conservative current of Islam that has significant clout. This includes both traditional “scholarly” Salafist groups and less organized factions influenced by regional events.
These forces constitute a key component of Jordan’s conservative social landscape and are intertwined with tribal networks of affiliation and religious and cultural ties. This enables them to exert varying degrees of pressure on public policy, particularly regarding social legislation, education, and culture. Consequently, understanding their patterns of interaction and evolution remains crucial to grasping the dynamics of Jordan’s domestic balance and the management of its political stability.
External actors reshaping Jordan’s delicate path
Jordan’s room for maneuver is affected by a complex web of regional and international alliances, with tangible impacts on the ground. The United States is a key strategic and security partner, providing sustained economic and defense support through cooperative frameworks and agreements such as the Defense Cooperation Agreement signed in 2021, while maintaining a careful political balancing act. However, a reduction in American aid has directly impacted refugee services; UNHCR has warned that approximately 43,000 refugees are at risk of losing access to primary healthcare and cash assistance.
Then comes Israel, where the rise of far-right political forces, the policies of settlement expansion, and the dismantling of the two-state solution together pose a major challenge for Amman. They have placed Jordan’s obligations under the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel, as well as agreements over energy and water, in a delicate balance against official stances and a public mood influenced by the Gaza war and pressures arising from territorial demarcation schemes.
To the south, Amman’s relations with Gulf capitals, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, represent a crucial strategic depth. These ties are evolving toward frameworks based on investment partnerships and major development projects, which require specific arrangements and commitments from Jordan.
One must also address the question of the “new Syria” and the situation on Jordan’s northern border. The month after the fall of the Assad regime, Amman and the transitional Syrian government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa established a joint security committee, in January 2025, to secure the border and combat the smuggling of weapons and drugs.
Yet the trade in the illicit stimulant Captagon has shown more resilience than the regime that created it, morphing into networks capable of filling power vacuums, particularly in southern Syria’s Sweida province, much of which remains beyond the control of Damascus. The Jordanian army has carried out repeated preemptive strikes inside Syria, most recently between 2 and 6 May 2026, to curb a smuggling trade that fuels crime and extremism domestically.
Future scenarios for Jordan’s delicate path
The interplay of these factors suggests five potential trajectories for Jordan in the coming period.
The first is one of “controlled continuity,” and builds on the premise that the status quo can be maintained. This would involve managing political reform in a largely superficial, incremental manner, and relying on the usual inflows of aid to contain economic crises, all the while leveraging the effectiveness of the security establishment in preserving stability. While it represents a highly probable situation for now, this trajectory could entail cumulative costs in the long run.
The second scenario is one of effective, incremental modernization. It would build on the implementation of deeper political and social reforms, and would entail broadening the base of partnership and elite representation, specifically by more effectively integrating youth and Islamist forces into parliament and future parliamentary governments, alongside structural economic policies to boost production and dismantle monopolies. The likelihood of this path being adopted remains moderate, as it depends on an alignment of interests between traditional elites and demands for change.
The third scenario would involve acute economic pressures, in the form of widespread hardship resulting from a decline in foreign grants or the IMF imposing harsh new financial conditions such as subsidy cuts or new taxes. Such measures could fuel growing social discontent in both the periphery and the center. This scenario remains a real possibility; one closely linked to global and regional economic stability.
The fourth scenario would see the Kingdom redefine its strategic role, successfully positioning itself as a logistical and economic bridge connecting energy, water, and transport projects across the Gulf, Iraq, and the Levant. This would mark Jordan’s transformation from a “shock-absorber” to a “bridge” and a host to major projects, an opportunity that would depend on regional stability and pragmatic maneuvering.
A balanced assessment of Jordan’s situation indicates that its traditional social contract, predicated on state patronage and extensive public-sector employment, faces pressing challenges that are limiting its capacity to absorb further demands. Jordan’s economic model, dependent on aid and debt, requires urgent structural reform.
Furthermore, efforts at political modernization, while significant, need to be translated into substantive measures that build trust with citizens and integrate active social forces, especially in the wake of the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood. Survival and stability in a turbulent regional environment cannot rely solely on traditional tools of crisis management; rather, they demand a strategic vision that balances the state’s needs with the deep-seated dynamics of society and the economy, thereby transforming Jordan’s current challenges into opportunities to build a more robust, resilient, and revitalized national project.