The historical emergence of small business conducts as an effective instrument for governing economic reform in Jordan; governmentality perspective

For the last three decades, the term 'reform' has been used widely by various scholars to explain the recent economic and social transformations which were undertaken by the modern democratic states. This paper aims to describe how the small business conducts emerged in Jordanian political discourses as an effective instrument for governing the national economic reform; where the old form of governance based on the large business scale failed to achieve socio-economic developments. This article utilises the framework of govern-mentality to analyse and understand the recent changes in mentality of governing the economic reform policy. This framework is comprised of three interrelated elements of governing: the conditions under which particular form of political rationalities direct economic reform; programmes which are designed to make rationalities amenable to interventions; and the technologies of governing which make the authority operable in normalising the behaviours of governed groups.