Origins of US Aid to Jordan

Abstract

Zimmermann describes how Jordan’s Hashemite leaders parlayed the country’s relevance to the Cold War, the Arab–Israeli peace process, and the War on Terror into large amounts of US aid that could be easily absorbed into distributive networks and provide public goods that the Jordanian state could not. She demonstrates how US Agency for International Development (USAID) conditionality did not attempt to fundamentally restructure aspects of Jordan’s distributive political economy and highlights USAID’s deep and recurring role in Jordan’s water and sanitation sectors, as well as in regional governance in the Jordan Valley and the Aqaba Special Economic Zone. Finally, she demonstrates that while US interest groups played very little role in US aid to Jordan, the availability of aid from wealthy Arab donors could both compete with and complement Washington’s agenda.