How Foreign Intervention Affects Regime Durability in Saudi Arabia and Jordan

Abstract

Durability is a term that is used to describe and measure a regime's ability to survive and its longevity. It also can be defined as the overall strength derived from the accountability to a state’s population. Many Authors have discussed durability and how and why regimes stay in power for so long. Also, a big factor that is discussed within the literature is foreign intervention in the form of financial, fiscal, and military aid. What I seek to understand is how foreign financial aid along with military intervention, and continuous fiscal support affects regime stability and longevity over time within my case studies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. I am going to add to the discourses surrounding how foreign aid, military intervention, and fiscal support either positively or negatively affect the durability of regimes and I am to answer the question of if aid is the main factor that affects regime survivability and with the cases of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, I aim to create a linear spectrum of durability where the previous cases that Dr. Yom discusses and where my cases fall on the spectrum of durability. From the literature discussed by the various authors on durability, survivability, and infrastructural power. I aim to find where my case studies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia fall as they relate to geopolitical seclusion (durable), geopolitical subsidization (tenuous survival), and geopolitical substitution (total regime change) and seek to chart a spectrum of durability.