Bread, Power, Democracy : The Politics of Welfare and State in Jordan

December 2024, Article by Farida Dowidar

Bread, one of the most ubiquitous and unassuming staples of human sustenance, is a mundane feature of daily life. It is present in countless meals across cultures, serving as a foundation rather than a focal point. Its simplicity—flour, water, and yeast —makes it an essential of everyday rituals: a quick breakfast with ful or falafel, a companion to hummus or muhammara, or a vessel for shawarma or musakhan (Martínez, p.5). It is rarely the subject of attention or admiration, but this ordinariness, this ever-reliable, indispensable presence, draws an array of questions. Who ensures bread’s presence? If it is so valuable, why is it priced as it is?

In States of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan, José Ciro Martínez delves into the seemingly mundane world of subsidised bread in Jordan. Priced at 16 qirsh ($0.25) per kilogram, citizens consume about 90 kg of khubz ‘arabi, the Levantine pita bread, annually per person (Martínez, p.5). This bread is accessible to all residents, regardless of income, nationality, or social class (Martínez, p.7). The subsidy system, introduced in 1974, emerged as a response to mounting social and political pressures, and since then, bread has remained a source of compliance within Jordan (Martínez, p.2). So, beyond being just a staple of daily life, bread allows us to examine Jordanian governance, foregrounding the ordinary and routine in political analysis.

Martínez used ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, archival research, and theoretical analysis to write this book. Over nearly two years, Martínez conducted extensive participant observation in Jordanian bakeries, spending 12 months working as an apprentice in three bakeries in Amman (Martínez,
p.14). Martínez also collaborated closely with officials from Jordan’s Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Supply (MOITS), accompanying them for 60 days as they inspected bakeries, allocated flour, and addressed disputes (Martínez, p.14). He engaged with ordinary citizens through informal conversations and participation in community events, and he complemented his fieldwork with extensive archival research, consulting government documents, newspaper archives, and academic texts in Jordan, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Martínez, p.15). Through these combinations, Martínez is able to show the processes and relationships that make bread as vital as it is in Jordan.

By using both personal narratives and rigorous analysis, Martínez shows how subsidised bread operates as both a public good and a political tool. The book prompts readers to reconsider the boundaries between the personal and the political, the material and the symbolic, and the individual and the state. Thus, this book report will focus on the introduction and Chapter 2, titled Sensing the State, to explore the question: How does subsidised bread in Jordan function as a performative mechanism of inserting state presence, and what does this reveal about the broader relationship between welfare provisions and governance?

I. The Rising of the Dough: Contexts and Origins of Bread Subsidisations

Jordan’s welfare system has undergone a series of transformations, moving from a state-led model to a neo-liberal one (Baylouny, 2008). Historically, welfare provisions primarily benefited East Bank Jordanians, but in the 1970s, when state-wide provisions were introduced, specialised institutions were created to maintain the processes of proliferating these staple foods. These measures secured the loyalty of key constituencies while addressing inflation and rising living costs. However, the late 1980s saw Jordan implement structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) under pressure from international financial institutions such as the IMF as part of a neoliberal global order that saw the removal of subsidies, privatisation of public assets, and reduced public sector employment (Baylouny, 2008). The dismantling of the Ministry of Supply in 1998 symbolised this transition, as the management of subsidies, including bread, was transferred to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Baylouny, 2008). Amidst these changes, bread remained one of the few (for the most part) unaffected goods, retaining its symbolic and material significance even as broader welfare systems were restructured.

Before the 1970s, bread in Jordan, beyond Amman, was primarily prepared at home or in communal village ovens (Martínez, p.56). Families grew and milled their own wheat, with bread purchased from the market, known as khubz al-suq (bread from the market), initially associated with the displaced and impoverished, carrying a negative connotation (Martínez, p.2). However, rapid population growth, the influx of refugees, and the increasing availability of inexpensive foreign wheat changed these perceptions.

The government of Jordan began subsidising bread in 1974, an initiative implemented in response to increasing social pressures for the people, including a mutiny within the army earlier that year, which highlighted the need for accessible (and highly visible) welfare programs to stabilise the population (Martínez, p.52). Along with bread, subsidies on essential goods like wheat, sugar, and petroleum were introduced (Baylouny, 2008). Subsidised bread became a staple of everyday life, and by the 1980s, the convenience and affordability of bakery bread had entirely displaced traditional practices, making khubz al-suq the norm for families across Jordan.

Over the years, the bread subsidy system has continued to adapt and expand to accommodate Jordan’s growing population and changing socio-economic landscapes. By 2013, over 1,500 bakeries were operating throughout the kingdom, most small establishments employing six to seven workers (Martínez, p.2). These bakeries predominantly produce subsidised khubz ‘arabi. All members of Jordanian society consume this, though for the working classes, the carbohydrate represents a larger portion of their diet (whilst upper classes usually consume this bread with mashawi and other more expensive meats and cheeses) (Martínez, p.5). The subsidies bread program also supports Syrian refugees and migrant workers, making it ubiquitous in Jordan's diets (Martínez, p.6).

The bread subsidy system itself is highly regulated and systematic. The Jordanian Ministry of Finance purchases wheat through international tenders, importing over 1 million metric tons annually from Romania, Russia, and Ukraine (Martínez, p.7). It arrives in Aqaba, where it is examined by officials of both the Jordan Food and Drug Administration and the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Supply (MOITS). Once approved, this wheat is stored in silos operated by the Jordan Silos and Supply General Company, then blended and processed into flour by private mills. Only one specific type of flour, muwwahad, processed at a 78% extraction rate, subsidised and closely monitored by the government, is authorised to produce subsidised bread (Martínez, p.7). Government officials monitor every step of the process to ensure quality and adherence to the fixed price.

This wheat is then shipped through distributors to privately owned bakeries, each receiving an allocation of muwwahad depending on estimated customer demand (Martínez, p.7). At the bakery, they mix the flour with water, salt, sugar, and yeast, producing a dough that is baked and ultimately produces a flat, round loaf about sixteen inches in diameter– khubz ‘arabi.

This history shows how bread has changed in Jordanian society over the last few decades, shifting from traditionally home-prepared to a state-regulated product, beginning as a response to political unrest, and eventually evolving into an essential welfare mechanism. Today, bread has become a symbol of consistency and stability, with the state committed to this subsidisation.

II. Kneading Power: Bread as a Lens for Governance

Since 2010, bread has emerged as a powerful symbol of huriyya (freedom) and social justice during the protests of the Arab uprisings (Martínez, p.4). However, in recent scholarship, bread has also been framed as a dichotomous counterpart to public participation, raising questions about the relationship between material provision and political freedom. The debate surrounding khubz am al- dimuqratiyya (bread or democracy) prompted Martínez to investigate this dynamic (Martínez, p.4).

If bread is juxtaposed with democracy, does its provision imply a trade-off with freedom? And more importantly, how can bread—so seemingly mundane—function as a tool of governance?

The bread subsidy system in Jordan is a meticulous and heavily regulated process, exemplifying how state governance can be enacted by managing essential resources. As previously discussed, each stage of the subsidy’s lifecycle, from wheat to bread, reflects a carefully maintained network. This highly structured process reflects the state's biopolitical role in managing resources for the welfare of its population. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theories of governmentality, the bread subsidy system demonstrates how the state governs by regulating life’s basic needs (Martínez, p.10). Rather than exercising overt coercion, the government uses bread as a mechanism to ensure compliance and stability, integrating itself into the routines and rhythms of daily life.

Judith Butler’s concept of performativity further shows how the repetitive practices involved in bread production and distribution materialise the state’s authority (Martínez, p.8). The routine availability of subsidised bread creates the perception of a reliable and omnipresent state, even amidst broader socioeconomic challenges. Referring to a quote from the book, Hani, who Martínez works with at the bakery, responds to Martínez's complaint regarding a lack of state action in other aspects of daily life (slippery roads, electricity blackouts, etc) with “Where is the state? Here. At the bakery. In every loaf of bread” (Martínez, p.18).

By framing bread as an object of governance, we can see how the Jordanian state positions itself as both a provider and a regulator, using welfare provision as a symbolic and material act of authority. The subsidy system becomes a performative mechanism through which the state asserts its presence, reinforcing its legitimacy and embedding itself in the everyday lives of its citizens. Bread, in this context, becomes a tool for sustaining political rule.

III. Sensing the State: Bread in the Everyday

A note: I chose this chapter for the book review as it provided an interesting view of how welfare systems manifest in the everyday lives of citizens, going beyond abstract policies and administrative frameworks. Challenging conventional approaches to political economy by shedding light on the subtle, often overlooked ways welfare systems influence and shape citizen-state relationships, like much of the book, I was intrigued by how it explored seemingly mundane sensory experiences (scent of bread? the sound of an oven?) as vessels for state authority and legitimacy, fostering compliance and a sense of normalcy in its rule.

It is well-established that bread can serve as a government tool to prevent social unrest and foster complacency (Martínez, p.52). However, Martínez posits a deeper dimension: the sensations surrounding bread’s provision. In Chapter 2, Sensing the State, Martínez shows how the state is not just present through abstract policies or bureaucratic systems but through the tangible, sensory world, aiming to explore how material encounters– smell, taste, and touch of bread– make the state palpable to ordinary citizens. This concept, which Martínez terms stately sensations, builds on Davide Panagia’s idea of “the heterology of impulses that register on our bodies,” positioning these sensations as both a reflection of and a condition for experiencing the state (Martínez, p.52).

Martínez argues this by drawing on phenomenology and performative theories of the state to challenge the conventional (and often Westernised) understandings of the state as a distant or abstract entity (Martínez, p.13). He contends that the state is constantly performed and instantiated in the material practices and sensory environments of Jordanians, with the bread subsidy—manifested in the dough, ovens, and the rhythm of baking—allowing bakers, bureaucrats, and consumers alike to feel the state.

He argues that the bread subsidy reshaped Jordanians’ habits and practices, particularly after the 1974 implementation (Martínez, p.56). It altered social relations, daily routines, and even aestheticsby linking individuals to state power in intimate ways. The expansion of bakeries and the introduction of standardised bread introduced sensory markers of state presence, such as the smell of baking bread in neighbourhoods and the sound of flour mixers and diesel ovens (Martínez, p.60). Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s concept of a “community of sense,” Martínez contends that these shared sensory experiences fostered a collective identity (Martínez, p.52). Through the daily act of buying and consuming subsidised bread, citizens engaged in a corporeal interaction with state power (Martínez, p.61).

On a bitter note, the standardisation of bread homogenised its taste, leading many to lament the loss of regional and artisanal varieties, such as the account of one farmer who told Martinez, “Now we grow olives for the rich and eat bread that tastes like shit” (Martínez, p.53). It also reshaped temporal rhythms, as families no longer had to coordinate bread production with the agricultural calendar; they could purchase bread any time, reinforcing their dependence on the state’s bakeries (Martínez, p.56). Martínez compares this phenomenon to Katherine Verdery’s analysis of socialist Romania, where state control over resources reorganised citizens’ temporalities and daily lives (Martínez, p.60). In Jordan, the bakery similarly altered routines, fostering a collective reliance on the state. This reliance was not without ambivalence. Some citizens mourned the loss of self-sufficiency and criticised the blandness of industrial bread (Martínez, p.57). Nevertheless, bread became a medium through which the state intuitively asserted itself, using taste, smell, and availability to gain unconscious legitimacy.

Martínez additionally examines how the bread subsidy in Jordan functioned as a strategic tool for statecraft, with the 1974 welfare implementation explicitly designed to foster political stability and cultivate a coherent national identity, linking subsistence directly to the state (Martínez, p.62). The subsidy sought not just to feed citizens but to foster their reliance on and attachment to the monarchy. Revising the “distribution of the sensible”, the bakery allowed citizens to encounter the state through shared sensory channels, creating a mutual recognition and reliance among citizens, which is particularly important in a fragmented society like Jordan (Martínez, p.64). The bakery operated outside traditional clientelistic ties, which is especially important when other state services build on these fragmentations, such as through patronage networks or kinship-based programs (Martínez, p.64)(Baylouny, 2008). This created what Martínez terms “sensory politics”, in which citizens are incorporated into a shared corporeal circuit that ties their daily lives to the state through bread (Martínez, p.64).

In marginalised neighbourhoods like Jabal Nadhif, Martínez highlights how bakeries offered rare stability in the face of poverty and unreliable public services (Martínez, p.66). The sensory experiences surrounding bread—affordability, familiar smells, and comforting routines—cultivated trust in the state’s provision of this essential good. However, the same senses that deem bread as affordable deem other products unaffordable– what Lauren Berlant terms the affectsphere, “the sensory pressures of the biopolitical”, fostering trust in the state in providing this good and forming a tangible sense of connection to political authority (Martínez, p.73). Whilst the rest of the city can cause unease because of prices, one resident remarked how the bakery can “taftah shahiyati” (whet the appetite) and trigger relaxation, “bitarihni”, due to its affordability and consistency (Martínez, p.73).

Through these sensory engagements, the bread subsidy allowed the state to penetrate individual households, quite literally tying citizens’ bodies to political authority. Thus, bakeries become key sites through which political authority circulates and reinforces a particular "distribution of the sensible," shaping both what citizens can sense and what makes sense to them (Martínez, p.71). Martínez concludes that the state is not a distant institution but an assemblage of forms and practices deeply embedded in Jordanian society through sensory politics (Martínez, p.78).

This perspective reframes welfare programs like the bread subsidy as dynamic tools that extend beyond mere social control. Martínez critiques the traditional separation of body and mind in social theory, drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s argument that subjectivity is deeply entangled with bodily experience (Martínez, p.51). By analysing the embodied experiences of bakers and consumers, Martínez reveals how everyday acts—kneading dough or seeing subsidised bread in a bakery window—forge visceral connections to political authority, embedding the state in the sensory of daily life.

V. Breaking Bread with the State: Reflections and Concluding Thoughts

The bread subsidy system in Jordan allows us to explore how subsidised bread goes beyond fulfilling the basic nutritional needs of the population; it becomes a performative mechanism through which the state continuously inserts its presence into the daily lives of its citizens. Buying affordable bread becomes a way the state can affirm legitimacy and power, subtly reinforcing the social contract– the “bread or democracy” paradox in which bread is guaranteed as part of the “ruling bargain” (Hinnebusch, 2019). As Jordanian MP Assaf al-Shubaki said, “The loaf of bread is a red line” (Martinez, 2016). However, as with all social contracts, if the state can no longer provide this provision, it risks losing the trust and compliance of its citizens.

States of Subsistence pushed for thought on politics beyond the conventional overhanging frameworks of authoritarianism, clientelism, and rent-seeking. Martínez’s ability to dive into the mundane—daily interactions with bread—and derive such nuanced insights into the workings of the state is incredibly interesting. The book challenges traditional narratives that limit analyses of state power to formal institutions or top-down policies, showing instead how the state is made, sensed, and contested through the ordinary and repetitive practices of welfare provision.

What resonates most is Martínez’s argument that welfare systems, along with the very state itself, are continuously made and remade. The notion that the state is not a fixed entity but an ongoing performance—one enacted through the material and sensory dimensions of programs like subsidised bread—forces a rethinking of how we engage with the concept of governance. Bread is not merely a passive symbol of stability or a reductive trigger for "bread riots," but a deeply embedded feature of citizens’ relationships with authority that can constantly trigger the flux nature of the state. This approach challenges the relationships between citizens and the state and the historical, economic, and cultural contexts that form it.

Ultimately, States of Subsistence pushes for a re-exploration of the state power's intimate, everyday experiences rather than reducing them to abstract economic or political calculations. The work leaves many questions, but one most unsettling is: even as we decry the state’s abuses and limitations, do we, as citizens, remain fundamentally tethered to its presence and promises? While escape may be desirable, where will such an escape lead? Is this provision of welfare not better than cases in which there is neither welfare provision nor freedom from the state’s omnipresence? Ultimately, as we experience the state’s presence in our everyday lives, even through something as seemingly mundane as bread, I wonder if we can ensure both khubz w al-dimuqratiyya (bread and democracy) without compromising one for the other?

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