Keywords: Elections, Legislative Elites, Jordanian Parliament.

INTRODUCTION

 Parliamentary elections are a common feature of democratic and non-democratic political systems. Political regimes can legitimate their acts through elections, and elections can improve political representation and the selection of political elites. Elections are an important part of the political process in a democracy, and every political system uses elections as a symbol of democracy (Chitlaoarporn, 2015), and contributes to democratization processes (Kim, 2020). The periodic repetition of elections over time allows for improvements in the liberal democratic components of electoral systems (Edgell et al., 2018). The percentage of new members in parliaments compared to the percentage of former members who were elected more than once and the multiplicity of sources of elite turnover are reflected in the turnover of elites. Whereas studies show several types of legislative elite turnover Swain et al. (2000) but Ysmal (1994) focuses on three major types death, abstaining from candidacy and failure in elections.

According to the current study, third world countries, including Jordan, are still witnessing slow progress towards democracy, and therefore the rates of turnover of legislative elites in parliaments still raise many problems, most notably the reasons for the stability of parliamentary elites and their slow renewal. What happened in Jordan during the 2020 parliamentary elections, on the other hand, surprised observers. Despite the fact that it was conducted in accordance with an electoral law that was put in place for the 2016 parliamentary elections, the results of the 2020 elections resulted in the addition of (100) new parliamentarians. As a result, the current study investigates the factors that contributed to this sudden change in the composition of the Jordanian parliament.

Previous Studies

Elections are a major part of democratic governance, as they are the main means for the renewal of legislative elites and the transfer of power. However, Gilens & Page (2014) believe that, although elections are considered one of the most important elements of the formation of political elites within parliament, there is no sure guarantee for such a perception, given that there are many factors that affect the issue of the renewal of parliamentary elites, most notably the electoral behavior of the majority. This behavior affects the processes of access of the legislative elites to the decision-making center and the economic influence of the elites. In some cases, political money affects the processes of forming the legislative elites. Other studies confirm that the election law itself is the mainstay in the processes of renewing parliamentary elites, especially with regard to parties, because the election law may constitute a major obstacle in the parties' access to Parliament (Gunther, 1989).

However, some other political studies are focused on the behavior of the voter in the renewal of legislative elites; Elections do not constitute an essential element in the renewal of legislative elites, but rather the electoral process provides opportunities for voters to choose who represents them in parliaments (Gouglas & Maddens, 2019).

As for Andeweg (2005) the rate of renewal of parliamentary elites is related to the ability of parties to provide new candidates for elections. If elections are the only form of access to parliament, the renewal of parliamentary elites will be proportional to the totality of voters' party preferences and individual candidate preferences. As a result, if the parties nominate the same lists of names in each election, the voters' choices will equal the legislative turnover rate, resulting in the stability of the elites and their non-renewal as a result of the limited voter options.

The parliamentary elections in Jordan are a one-of-a-kind case. On the one hand, Jordan witnessed four electoral systems from (1989-202) elections: The open list system (the bloc), which was used in the 1989 parliamentary elections, and the one-vote, one-vote law, which states that the voter gives his vote to a candidate, It was used in parliamentary elections from 1993 to 2010. In 2012, a new election law was passed that gave each voter two votes, one for the local electoral district and one for the general electoral district, and in 2016, another election law (open proportional list) was passed so that the candidate for the House of Representatives is chosen from the open proportional list, so that the voter casts his vote for one list and then votes for another. Then one of the candidates is selected from the list (Nahar, 2012; Mohsen, 2015). While the percentage of elections ranged between (54 percent-29 percent), and the results of Jordanian elections from (1989-2020) demonstrated the Jordanian parties' weakness in building popular bases supportive of the elections, as Jordan includes a mix of Islamist, nationalist, and leftist parties; However, this partisan diversity did not contribute to building alliances to form influential parliamentary blocs. On the other hand, the elections showed the strength of the clan. This is mainly due to the fact that the Jordanian clans played a central role in the establishment of Jordan. Therefore, the Jordanian clans have enjoyed a permanent presence in Parliament since the establishment of Jordan until now (Aladwan & Aldabbas, 2015). As for the renewal of parliamentary elites in Jordanian parliaments, the results of many studies that examined the Jordanian case confirmed that the renewal of legislative elites is so weak that we can call it the stability of legislative elites and non-renewal. Elites have been recurring in the Jordanian parliament (Al-Tarawneh & Bashar, 2019).

But the surprising thing in the Jordanian scene is that the parliamentary elections that were held on the tenth of 2020 changed the Jordanian electoral scene, as those elections nominated new representatives to the 19^th House of Representatives in a dramatic way. The overall number of seats was (130), while the number of deputies who returned from previous parliamentary assemblies was (30), accounting for 22% of the total number of seats. While the number of new deputies reached (100) deputies elected for the first time, accounting for (78%) of the total number of seats so, the Observers were taken aback by this significant shift in the structure of the parliamentary elites; On the one hand, these elections revealed a significant loss of candidates from previous parliaments as well as the emergence of new faces in the nineteenth parliament, on the other hand, it cannot be said that the major changes in the structure of the new parliamentary elites can be attributed to a democratic development in Jordan, especially since the elections witnessed a noticeable decline in the number of seats won by Jordanian political parties, as the percentage of Jordanian party currents' seats did not exceed (16%) in the nineteenth Jordanian parliament.

The recent Jordanian case can be explained by looking at other factors that led to a change in the composition of the nineteenth parliament, which is represented by the prevailing social culture, where the social culture reflects voters' orientations to choose their representatives in parliament, because the social dimension is one of the important indicators in measuring the level of renewal of parliamentary elites (Solimano & Avanzini, 2014). Based on the current study, the prevailing social culture affects the behavior of the Jordanian voter. The Jordanian clans represent one of the most prominent pressure groups affecting the behavior of the Jordanian voter. Therefore, this factor affects the turnover rates of legislative elites, so in order to understand this factor well, the study tests two other factors (election laws, and Jordanian political parties) to find out which factors have the most influence on the turnover rates of legislative elites in the Jordanian elections.

Problem of the Study

Despite the constant changes in Jordanian parliamentary election laws from 1989 to 2020, Jordan's political reforms beginning in 2003, and the enactment of new party laws, the parliamentary elite's turnover in the Jordanian House of Representatives remained low, and the Jordanian electoral scene continued to see the same candidates almost. As a result, the parliamentary elites' level of deliberation was very limited, but the nineteenth parliament saw radical changes when it reached the new parliament (100) deputies who won for the first time. As a result, the current study seeks to identify the factors that led to this shift in circulation rates during the nineteenth parliament.

Questions of the Study

The current study will answer the following questions:

1. What is the role of electoral systems and legislation in renewing the parliamentary elites in Jordan?
2. What is the role of the parties in renewing the parliamentary elites in Jordan?
3. What is the role of the electoral behavior of the Jordanian voter in renewing the parliamentary elites in Jordan?

Importance of the Study

The current study is one of the few in Jordan that looked at the factors influencing the circulation rates of Jordan's parliamentary elites. As a result, it is hoped that this study will provide a number of recommendations and suggestions that will help to uncover the causes of stagnation in the renewal of Jordanian parliamentary elites, then, the development of new mechanisms aimed at renewing the parliamentary elites in order to enhance the processes of democratic transformation in Jordan.

Limitations of the Study

The current study was limited to the following:

1. Members of the Nineteenth House of Representatives (130) in the year 2020-2021.
2. The questionnaire that was prepared and its validity and reliability were checked. As a result, the findings of this study cannot be generalized beyond the scope of the current study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

This section of the study refers to previous studies that addressed the issue of legislative elite rotation. Huneidi (2014) examined Jordan's elites' values, beliefs, and attitudes toward liberation, democracy, and development, as well as Jordan's ability to achieve higher levels of development. According to the study, the Jordanian political system is still compatible with elite political culture and other power patterns within the elite classes, this contributes to the stability of elites and reduces the level of their renewal.

Baba (2014) intends to determine the extent to which political power is concentrated in the hands of Africa's elites. The study's findings revealed that the concentration of economic power in the hands of Africa's political elites gives them a form of political dominance, while citizens' roles are limited to voting in elections with no real participation in political decision-making processes, which, in the end, means the legislative elites' stability and the difficulty of renewing them. As for the study of Aledwan et al. (2018) aimed to identify the extent of the renewal of legislative elites in the Jordanian parliament. The study relied on the hypothesis that the political reforms that Jordan witnessed contribute to the renewal of legislative elites. The study concluded that the Jordanian parliament is witnessing a recurrence of elites, in addition that the reform transformations did not result in a noticeable renewal in the structure of the Jordanian parliamentary elite.

Kountouri (2018) investigated the level of renewal of legislative elites in the Greek Parliament for the period (1996-2015) by discussing three aspects that are the patterns of entry of new MPs; in addition to the impact of the political and electoral transformations introduced by the debt crisis on the renewal of the parliamentary elites; and continuity patterns of the old deputies. The study concluded that the Greek Parliament witnessed during the period (1996-2015) a repetition of the old deputies, meaning that the level of renewal of the legislative elites was weak.

Salvati & Vercesi (2018) investigated the relationship between the change of party leaders and the legislative rotation in the Italian Parliament by studying the 2018 elections as a case study. The results of the study showed that the main parties in Italy tended to change their leaders in the period (2013-2018) with the aim of forming strong parliamentary groups in the Italian House of Representatives, electoral performance, and naming party candidates, as this change in party leaders contributed to accelerating the rate of legislative turnover. The previous studies show the importance of the current study in the level of turnover of the legislative elites, as the level of turnover varies from one country to another depending on the political system, regulations and laws that organize the parliamentary elections and finally the electoral behavior of the citizen. Therefore, the current study can be considered one of the few studies in Jordan that dealt with this aspect, and this supports the importance of this type of studies in the Jordanian environment.

Procedures of the Study

The current study relied mainly on the theory of the elite developed by "Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca and Robert Michaels." The elite theory is based on the fact that society is divided between the people and a ruling minority, where the political authority has the ability to impose and make decisions that are valid for the whole society, so elections are considered a step Crucial to the elites' deliberation process (Osei, 2015).

Some political elites recognize that by forming broad electoral alliances, they can win elections over and over again. In the Jordanian case, it is noted that there is stability in the turnover of elites in elections until 2020, when those elections produced (100) new MPs elected for the first time, so the current study investigates the factors that led to this change.

The field survey method was used by distributing a questionnaire to the new members of the House of Representatives to find out the factors that led to this change in the turnover rate of legislative elites in Jordan.

Population of the Study

The study population included all members of Jordan's nineteenth House of Representatives for the year 2020, a total of (130) deputy. All members were given the questionnaire. After retrieving the questionnaires, (17(of them were found to be invalid, bringing the total number of questionnaires to (113) (130).

Instruments of the Study

For the purposes of identifying the factors affecting the turnover rate of legislative elites in Jordan, a questionnaire consisting of (25) items were developed, divided into three areas:

1. Electoral regulations and legislation, it has (8) items.
2. Political parties, it has (8) items.
3. The electoral behavior of the Jordanian voter, it has (9) items.

To ensure the resolution's validity, a Corrected Item-Total Correlation was performed for each item with the appropriate field and the tool as a whole. The correlation coefficients of the items and the tool as a whole ranged between (0.43-0.82) with (0.55-0.93).

The internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's alpha) were also conducted for each of the tool domains and for the tool as a whole, which ranged between (0.87-0.91). These values were considered appropriate for the purposes of the current study.

Findings of the Study

According to the study questions' analyses, the answer to the first question: "What are the influencing factors the renewal of the legislative elites of the Jordanian parliamentary elections for the nineteenth Jordanian parliament?" As follows:

To answer this question, the chi-squared test was calculated for the differences in the opinions of the study sample according to the fields of the study as shown in the following Table 1:

Table 1 CHI-SQUARED TEST FOR THE DIFFERENCES IN THE OPINIONS OF THE STUDYSAMPLE ACCORDING TO THE DIMENSIONS OF THE STUDY
Items	Chi-square value 2	Sig	Median	Result
Electoral regulations and legislation	1.5	0.000	0.000	Low
The parties	1.375	0.000	0.000	Low
Voting behavior	3.556	0.000	0.000	High

Table 1 show that the regulations, legislation and parties did not affect the turnover rates of legislative elites, while the voting behavior affected the turnover rates as shown in the following Figure 1:

FIGURE 1

VOTING BEHAVIOR AFFECTED THE TURNOVER RATES

In order to clarify the three dimensions (regulations and legislation, parties, voting behavior), the chi-squared test for differences was calculated for the opinions of the study sample on each of the three dimensions.

First: Electoral Regulations and Legislation

Table 2 THE RESULT OF THE CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR THE DIFFERENCES IN THE OPINIONS OF THE STUDY SAMPLE REGARDING THE ROLE OF ELECTORAL REGULATIONS AND LEGISLATION IN RENEWING PARLIAMENTARY ELITES IN THE 2020 JORDANIAN ELECTIONS
No.	Items	Chi-square value 2	Sig	Median	Result
1	The Jordanian electoral law provides an opportunity for the renewal of legislative elites	72.600	0.000	2	Low
2	Jordanian electoral laws provide a voter with the opportunity to choose more than one candidate at the level of the electoral district and the country	60.400	0.000	1	Very low
3	Jordanian electoral laws contribute to the rotation of power and the renewal of political elites	81.600	0.000	1	Very low
4	Election laws enshrine the principle of equality and the values of competition for the access of opposition groups and loyalists to Parliament	66.000	0.000	2	Low
5	The political system's desire to renew political elites	66.800	0.000	1	Very low
6	Election laws provide equal opportunities for young people to reach the parliament	66.400	0.000	2	Low
7	Election laws contribute to constantly changing the legislative structure	70.000	0.000	1	Very low
8	Election laws provide transparency and integrity of the electoral process	78.400	0.000	2	Low

Table 2 indicates that the role of legislation was low in renewing the legislative elites in the 2020 elections. Perhaps this justification is somewhat logical in the Jordanian case, as the 2020 elections took place according to the 2016 election law and were characterized by the stability of the legislative elites, as the turnover rate of those elites reached (2.7 %), this means that electoral regulations and legislation were not the influencing factor the level of elite turnover in the 2020 elections.

Second: The Political Parties

Table 3  THE RESULT OF THE CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR DIFFERENCES FOR THE STUDY SAMPLE REGARDING THE ROLE OF ELECTORAL PARTIES IN RENEWING PARLIAMENTARY ELITES IN THE 2020 JORDANIAN ELECTIONS
No.	Items	Chi-square value 2	Sig	Median	Result
1	Political parties participate in the formulation of electoral laws	69.360	0.000	2	Low
2	Political parties are constantly renewing their candidates	75.800	0.000	1	Very low
3	Political parties provide their members with equal opportunities to contest elections	79.000	0.000	2	Low
4	Political parties cooperate with election candidates from outside their cadres to promote the renewal of political elites in the Parliament	79.600	0.000	1	Very Low
5	Political parties play an important role in raising awareness of the importance of the renewal of political elites in the parliament.	93.200	0.000	1	Very low
6	Political parties propose candidates from outside their members to ensure the renewal of political elites	113.000	0.000	2	Low
7	Political parties are suitable places for preparing political elites	66.000	0.000	1	Very low
8	Parties are keen to be program parties and not parties of people to contribute to the renewal of political elites	85.800	0.000	1	Very Low

Table 3 indicates that the role of the Jordanian parties in renewing the legislative elites was low, which reflects the weakness of the Jordanian parties and their inability to change the turnover rates of the legislative elites. The Jordanian parties' attendance was below the required level due to the weak structures of those parties and their inability to influence the voter's behavior. Jordanian parties have no influence on Jordanian political life for several factors, including; Weak participation in affiliation to parties on the one hand, weak programs and parties suggested by the parties, and lack of resources, all of this posed a real challenge to the establishment of effective parties in the Jordanian parliament.

Third: Voting Behavior

Table 4  THE RESULT OF THE CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR THE DIFFERENCES IN THE OPINIONS OF THE STUDY SAMPLE REGARDING THE ROLE OF ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR IN RENEWING THE PARLIAMENTARY ELITES IN THE 2020 JORDANIAN ELECTIONS
No.	Items	Chi-square value 2	Sig	Median	Result
1	The Jordanian voter selects his or her candidate on the basis of the efficiency criterion.	73.400	0.000	3	High
2	The Jordanian voter is keen to override family or clan considerations when choosing his or her candidates.	80.000	0.000	4	High
3	The Jordanian citizen realizes the importance of awareness of the electoral process to produce the most qualified candidate.	79.400	0.000	4	High
4	The Jordanian voter gives priority to the interest of the country when choosing his candidate.	68.200	0.000	3	High
5	The Jordanian citizen is keen to actively participate in the elections in order to contribute to the renewal of the political elites	64.720	0.000	3	High
6	The Jordanian citizen enjoys positive attitudes towards the electoral process.	78.800	0.000	3	High
7	The Jordanian citizen is keen to participate in the electoral process to choose the best choice to represent them in Parliament.	61.400	0.000	4	High
8	The Jordanian citizen is keen to cooperate with parties and community organizations to select qualified candidates in Parliaments.	113.000	0.000	3	High
9	There is a desire among the Jordanian citizen for the renewal of the legislative elites.	79.600	0.000	5	Very high

Table 4 shows that the role of the voting behavior of the Jordanian voter influencing the renewal of the legislative elites was high. Therefore, this factor has an impact on the turnover of the legislative elites. This result is mainly due to the fact that the behavior of the Jordanian voter is affected by the tribal affiliation of the voter, as the Jordanian voter tends to support the clan candidate as opposed to the party candidate. Accordingly, it can be said that the influence of the clan on the voter’s behavior is more than the influence of the party because of the individual’s conviction of the importance of the system represented by the clan and the lack of conviction in the role of party programs on the ground.

CONCLUSION

The results of the analysis showed the limited role of electoral systems and legislation and parties in changing the turnover rates of elites and their renewal. On the other hand, the most influential factor in turnover rates was the voter’s behavior, which is affected by the clan dimension. By reviewing the long history of Jordanian elections since the establishment of the kingdom, it is noted that Jordanian clans have retained fixed seats in the Jordanian Parliament. Perhaps the clan dimension was always present in the parliamentary elections since the establishment of (the emirate) and then the kingdom, because the parliamentary councils were not intended to monitor the performance of the government or enact laws as much as they represented a support factor for political authority. In addition, the government's experience with parliaments, which were dominated by a partisan character in the fifties, made it prefer to deal with councils that were predominantly tribal. Therefore, the government banned parties during that period, and this ban was in favor of the clan dimension and domination, and after the experience of 1989, the government proceeded to impose the one-vote law since 1993, so the results of the 1993 elections were in favor of the candidate with the clan dimension compared to the 1989 elections, whose outcomes were in favor of religious parties, The Jordanian clan is one of the institutions of socialization that greatly influences the behavior of the Jordanian voter to choose the tribal candidate instead of the party candidate.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In light of the previous results, the current study recommends the following:

1. Reconsidering the Jordanian electoral laws so that laws are established to support candidacy on a partisan basis rather than on a clan basis.
2. Supporting the Jordanian parties to play their role in selecting party candidates who will be trusted by the Jordanian voter.
3. Conducting more studies on the reasons for the stagnation of legislative elites in Jordanian parliaments

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