Khaberni - Differentiating between the concepts of citizen and subject, as presented by some researchers in the study of comparative political systems, serves as an important entry point for understanding the nature of the post-colonial state in the Arab world. The modern state, inheriting the colonial administrative apparatus, restored its institutional form; however, it did not aim to rebuild the relationship between authority and society on the basis of political citizenship, but rather maintained the structure based on the separation between a category enjoying political rights (citizens), and another subjected to the state's authority without possessing tools for participation (subjects). From here, it appears that the essence of the problem does not lie in the "form of the state" but in its social and political structure and the nature of power distribution within it.
This model is highlighted in context through the reproduction of traditional loyalties—regional, sectarian, and local—as tools for political control, where the nation-state did not work on dismantling traditional structures or integrating them into an inclusive democratic representational system, but employed them as channels for control and legitimacy. Central elites retained wealth and political decision-making, while local communities were approached through "intermediaries" from tribal sheikhs or sectarian leaders or regional notables. Thus, vast portions of society remained in the position of "subjects" who are managed and do not participate, and their identity is defined based on collective belonging rather than a national political identity.
In the case of Jordan, this structure can be observed through the historical balance between the state and the tribe. Despite the Jordanian state's success in building a modern administrative apparatus and relatively stable political institutions, the tribe remained an essential framework for social and political representation, not only as a cultural structure but also as a channel for the distribution of influence and resources. This has perpetuated the separation between: a citizen who possesses formal political rights within the general legal framework, and a subject integrated into the political system through traditional intermediaries who grant the state social legitimacy in exchange for privileges. Therefore, this model does not indicate the absence of the modern state, but its duality: a state of law and modern administration at the center, and customary or traditional administration at the periphery. Consequently, political participation remains more connected to social and collective status than to the individual as an independent political unit.
Hence, the current political challenges in Jordan appear at three levels:
1. Redefining citizenship as an equal political belonging that is not based on social hierarchy.
2. Integrating tribal structures without dissolving them, so they transform from a medium of authority to a national lever that produces mature political elites.
3. Unifying the legal structure so that everyone is subject to a single civil legal system, not to multiple customary systems with diverse actors and levels.
The analysis of the Jordanian case in this context is not intended to impose a Western model on the local reality or to mechanically compare them, but rather to use this analysis to understand the specificity of the relationship between the modern state and traditional society within its historical and social framework. The tension between the logic of the state and the logic of traditional structures cannot be overcome by dismantling these structures or abolishing them, but through transforming them from tools of social loyalty to channels of political representation. Thus, political reform becomes a gradual transformation process from the pattern of "subjecthood" managed by local leaders, to the pattern of "citizenship" practiced as an individual's conscious engagement in the production and distribution of power within the state.
