From Paper to Practice: Embedding Evidence-Informed Policy Capacity in Jordan’s Party System

It is the practices of a party, i.e. how it is organized and how it campaigns in the first rounds of elections that in the end outlast the founders of a party. Thus for a country llike Jordan, parties experiment still formative, and reforming institutions is more important than anything else. The Royal Committee to Modernise the Political System was set up in June 2021. It produced constitutional amendments as well as two laws in 2022. The first round of elections on the basis of these took place in 2024.[1] The first parliament was sworn in at the end of the year. In the space of time between the first round of elections and the following round of elections, i.e. in the space of a few years, which is now almost closing, the practices of the parties in Jordan will be decided. So far, the debate on the party system has focused on establishing a modern framework of institutions, including the rules for parties to be allowed to stand for elections (thresholds, quotas for certain groups of society, seat allocation, funding). Such rules determine who can stand for elections, but they do not determine on what program the parties then compete. Thus, even if all parties comply with a modernized framework of rules, they can still compete on the basis of identity, patronage and personality. Therefore, a completely different variable has to be built up, i.e. the capacity of the parties to turn a grievance into a problem, a problem into a proposal with a price tag, and a proposal with a price tag into a demand for legislation or for budgetary allocation. This external assessment of the current Jordanian party landscape, necessary as it is, cannot be imported wholesale into the current debate on political reform. Rather, what is lacking and needs to be built in order for this assessment to hold true by 2028 was specified by His Majesty King Abdullah II when he addressed politically active youth in January 2024. He there called for the formation of platform-based national parties, to address political, economic and social concerns. The King explicitly stated that he wanted platform-based parties, not individual-based parties.[2]

Platforms Need Jordan’s Knowledge Active Sector

Jordan has a large number of policy research institutions and think tanks. Some of the best known and largest examples in MENA region include among others the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, which was established in 1984 and has one of the largest and most established survey and public opinion units in the region.[3] However, a number of key characteristics of the policy research sector in Jordan also explain its relative weakness in terms of uptake. For one, funding of policy research is largely on a project-by-project basis and thus typically follows the reporting cycles of funders as opposed to the legislative calendar of Jordan. Furthermore, a great deal of the highest quality research in Jordan is published in English, thus read by academics, development practitioners in NGOs, and others based in Amman, but not by party cadres and members based in the governorates. Most importantly, however, there is currently no institutional channel for parties and their members to engage with research on policy issues. The absence of a party foundation in Jordan is thus a major factor in this respect, as would be the establishment of a parliamentary research service with real analytical capacity, and a number of settled committee practices, such as taking expert evidence on the record.[4]

In summary, research is being produced for an audience who are not part of the newly elected parliament, three-quarters of whom are members of new parties.

Design: Four Channels for Institutionalising Policy Capacity

If think tanks are to be incorporated into the life of parties, then some institutional plumbing will be required. Four channels to this end are outlined below. They are offered in ascending order of political difficulty. The first two channels are operationalizations of a recommendation already made by the Economic and Social Council (ESC).[5]

Minimum-viable policy units, financed by rule

A policy unit is not a research department. A policy unit with a small number of people (a policy lead, a data analyst and a drafter) can produce a small number of costed positions every year on the sectors that the party declared to be priority sectors. This would be a function that parties would build if it were financed by rule, in particular if the contribution regulation were amended to ring-fence a defined percentage of the state contribution for salaried policy staff and published analytical work. This would require secondary legislation (amendment of Economic and Social Council recommendation).

A shared, equal-access policy facility

Twenty weak research units are clearly worse than one strong, shared research unit. A non-partisan Party Policy Support Facility, hosted by an established institution and jointly governed by parties and academics, would provide a range of shared, basic products and services for licensed parties. In essence, a shared research unit, that could provide the following services: sectoral evidence syntheses, costing templates, a common macro-fiscal baseline, international comparisons translated into local languages and with local contexts explained, and confidential technical assistance on request. The design constraint is equal access. A facility that only served the largest parties would be seen to be in their pocket and to be an instrument to be used by them.

An independent parliamentary costing capability

The benefit of having an independent parliamentary costing capability is that it would create demand for the work of party policy units. Until now, the work of party policy units has been to produce papers which then get to die in the chamber. A properly staffed parliamentary budget and research office would cost-legislate and support committee scrutiny of bills. Thus, the analysis that parties already produce would have real-world impact. The basis for this already exists in the House in the form of post-legislative scrutiny practice which has been developed with external support, and so this would be a natural extension.[6]

A protected talent pipeline

Culture travels with people. Therefore, in order to create a sufficient amount of talent for the parties a) structured secondments of researchers in the policy units of parties and in research institutions of parties as well as b) competitive fellowships for graduate-level analysts for a term in the parliamentary blocs of parties would be required. The main binding constraint is protective in nature. The secondments need to be organized in a way that does not create any professional penalty for the participants. Therefore, the relevant legal protections against discrimination on grounds of political affiliation would have to be applied visibly and without wavering.

Anchoring Evidence: Where It Bites

There is a target for the analytical capacity to aim for. For now, Jordan has an unusually convenient target in the form of the Economic Modernisation Vision (EMV). The implementation of the EMV is being implemented through the Second Executive Programme (2026–2029) for the three pillars of the vision, seven strategic goals and seventy-two objectives to be implemented and measured through 126 key impact indicators. The indicative budget for the programs within the Second Executive Programme for the years 2026–2028 is set at JD 3.9 billion and is being implemented in line with the General Budget Law for fiscal year 2026.[7] In the meantime, the Public Sector Modernisation Roadmap is serving as a target for the administrative reforms.[8]

This is to create an immediate and low-conflict opening. By publishing annually a progress report in each of the sectors that the Economic Modernisation Vision identifies for delivery in the following year (i.e. by following what the relevant party is already following) – that is to say, by indicating where delivery is on track and where it is not together with an explanation of the published data – a party is doing the most useful kind of policy work. Such work is on terrain that the government has itself defined to be the terrain of the Economic Modernisation Vision. It does not require any privileged access to government. It can and should form the basis of a recurring news item. Above all, it builds the muscle that governing later requires. The ESC made a similar point in 2024 when it identified the budget discussions as the first major challenge of the 20th Lower House’s regular session and an early test of the distinctiveness of each party’s manifesto. The test of a party’s manifesto is an annual one and is the cheapest available training ground.[9]

Sequencing toward 2028

The next election is the natural forcing device. For immediate action (2026), required are ring-fence funding for policy staff and published output within the party contribution regulation. Establish a shared facility under multi-party governance and launch the secondment and fellowship scheme. For med-term action (2027), establish the function of parliamentary research and costing in order to offer voluntary manifesto costing to the parties. This will allow parties to have their platforms for the elections reviewed by an independent expert and published by him. Also, establish committee practice of taking external evidence on the record. By 2028 the costed platform for parties competing in the enlarged national list of the Jordanian Parliament will become the norm.

Monitoring this work using activity indicators is insufficient. Rather, the ESC can track the following indicators: the number of parties that have full-time policy staff; the share of national-list platforms for the next elections that are submitted for independent costing; the number of committee sessions in which external evidence is taken; the volume of party-authored analysis that is published in Arabic; and the share of funding for parties’ research that is spent domestically. The ESC can use these indicators to monitor progress honestly after the next election and compare them with the results of the 2024 study in which several parties had specific economic plans.

Conclusion

The risks of an identity and patronage-based competition for power within the framework of the new electoral system, and of parties’ working culture being written within this time frame and being hard to change thereafter, are high. What is most needed to foster analytical capacity in parties is to establish the ‘plumbing’ that is currently missing. Thus, funding rules would need to be designed to pay for the analysts that parties would need. A shared facility would be needed, one that could serve all parties on an equal basis. In addition to these requirements, a parliamentary counterpart would be needed to make the analysis conducted by parties’ staff consequential. And, last but not least, a supportive pipeline of evidence-informed policies would be required to move from Jordanian sector of think tanks and research institutions into the party system. Building this within the space of a single electoral cycle is a modest and achievable agenda.

[1] International Foundation for Electoral Systems, “Elections in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: 2024 Parliamentary Elections,” IFES FAQs, September 4, 2024, https://www.ifes.org/tools-resources/faqs/elections-hashemite-kingdom-jordan-2024-parliamentary-elections.

[2] Heba Elayyan, “26,272 Young People Are Members of Jordan’s 33 Political Parties — IEC,” Jordan Times, February 25, 2024, https://jordantimes.com/news/local/26272-young-people-are-members-jordans-33-political-parties-%E2%80%94-iec. The King’s remarks were made at a January 2024 meeting with politically and socially active youth from across the governorates.

[3] EuroMeSCo, “CSS – Center for Strategic Studies,” accessed August 23, 2026, https://www.euromesco.net/institute/css-center-for-strategic-studies/.

[4] Freedom House, “Jordan,” Freedom in the World 2025 (Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2025), https://freedomhouse.org/country/jordan/freedom-world/2025.

[5] “Of the 31 Political Parties Running for Parliamentary Elections, Only 7 Have Concise Economic Programmes, Vision – ESC,” Jordan Times, September 2, 2024, https://jordantimes.com/news/local/31-political-parties-running-parliamentary-elections-only-7-have-concise-economic.

[6] Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, Jordanian Political Parties Budget Analysis; Westminster Foundation for Democracy, “Jordan,” accessed August 23, 2026, https://www.wfd.org/where-we-work/jordan.

[7] Government of Jordan, Economic Modernisation Vision: Executive Programme 2026–2029, accessed August 23, 2026, https://jordanvision.jo/img/EMV_Executive_Program_2026_2029_English.pdf.

[8] Government of Jordan, Public Sector Modernisation: The Roadmap, accessed August 23, 2026, https://govreform.jo/EBV4.0/Root_Storage/EN/EB_Info_Page/Road_map.pdf.

[9] “Of the 31 Political Parties.”