Islamists are losing support in Jordan

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What student politics show

Many political scientists know Jordan University because its researchers help implement the Arab Barometer surveys. However, within student politics, JU is also a microcosm of society. It can be restive, with fee protests and tribal feuding recently agitating its Amman campus. It is also enormous. Of Jordan’s 300,000 university students, nearly 15 percent study at JU. Under its electoral system, students choose their universitywide governing council from closed lists of candidates. Nashama now has nine of the 18 student union seats, compared to the Islamists’ six.

Nashama succeeded with three strategies. First, it provided public services to all regardless of tribal or ideological affiliation, such as recording lectures, mentoring new students and holding forums about controversial topics like the military. It called for students to look beyond identity and interrogate how they could engage national problems like endemic corruption.

Read the full article at the Washington Post.

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