Photo by Kristen Kao
In 2014, I was the on-the-ground project manager for a nationwide poll in Jordan working with local partners as well as Professors Ellen Lust (Yale University) and Lindsay Benstead (Portland State University). In the survey, we asked Jordanians about the services they receive from their MPs, vote buying, and tribal voting. The survey also considers power dynamics and social relations within communities, probes gender issues, and includes embedded experiments concerning different aspects of the elections. We are collaborating on a number of projects that utilize the results of this survey including looking at whether international monitors affect domestic perceptions of the legitimacy of elections, how religious garb affects perceptions of parliamentary candidates, and the interactive effect of gender with Islamist versus tribal affiliations on candidate electability.
Related Publications
Kao, Kristen. 2022. “Electoral Institutions and Social-Identity Based Clientelism in Jordan.” Political Research Quarterly. here
Benstead, Lindsay, Kao, Kristen & Lust, Ellen (2022). Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy, Mediterranean Politics, 27:1, 57-78. Available here.
Kao, Kristen with Ezra, Karmel (2020). “What do Jordan’s Election Results Mean?” The Washington Post/Monkey Cage. Available here. Picked up and translated locally, discussed on Al Hurra News Channel here and on Al Jazeera’s Facebook page with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments: https://www.facebook.com/AJA.HKJordan/posts/3526902517424606?_rdc=1&_rdr
Kao, Kristen & Benstead, Lindsay. (2017). The Importance of Intersectionality: Gender, Islamism, and Ethnicity in Elections. SSRN Electronic Journal. Full article (click here).
Kao, Kristen. 2017-2021. Freedom in the World Report: Jordan. Freedom House.
Kao, Kristen (2017). “Jordan: Negotiating Political, Economic, and Social Minefields.” IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook. 2017. European Institute of the Mediterranean. Available here.
Kao, Kristen. 2017. “Electoral Institutions and Ethnic Clientelism.” APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter. 17(2): 44–50. Available here.
Kao, Kristen. 2016. “How Jordan’s Election Revealed Enduring Weaknesses in its Political System.” The Washington Post. Available here.
Kao, Kristen. (2015). “Do Jordan’s Tribes Challenge or Strengthen the State?” The Washington Post. Available here.
Kao, Kristen. (2012). “Jordan.” Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Kao, Kristen. (2012). “Jordan’s Ongoing Election Law Battle.” Sada. Washington, DC:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available here.
Participation in related Workshops
“Competing or Complementary? Gender, Islamism, and Ethnicity in Elections.” International Studies Association, Baltimore, MD, 2017 & APSA, San Francisco, CA, 2017.
“Electoral Institutions and Ethnic Clientelism in Jordan.” APSA, Philadelphia, 2016, & MENA Research Group University of Gothenburg, 2016 & European Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Brussels, Belgium, 2016.
