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Forever Blowing Bubbles? Neoliberalism, Policy Translation, and FDI’s Nebulous Seductions in Jordan
Abstract
In view of neoliberalism’s repeated, predictable failures in realizing market-delivered welfare gains in the Middle East, the layered resilience of her development orthodoxy and orthopraxy across the region continues to puzzle many observers. Indeed, in Jordan’s case – despite the Uprisings of 2010-2011 and later mobilizations representing Arab publics’ rather tactile refutation of the neoliberal social project - whether speaking of the relevant International Financial Institutions, the Hashemite-blessed Economic Policy Council, or the actors reputedly representative of the Islamist alternative (chiefly, the Islamic Action Front), today, the reproduction and thoughtless incantation of the neoliberal policy paradigm proceeds afoot. How can we explain this outcome? Certainly, the capacity of neoliberalism’s institutional voices to eternally extend the horizon of their teleology provides part of the answer. To this effect, post-factum relitigations of once celebrated reformers like Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Hussein can be superficially convincing, hoodwinking acts of revisionism whereby absolution for Arab de-development, corruption, and cronyism can be delivered to IFIs and western governments through the cynical and extemporaneous foisting of responsibility for such pathologies onto the shoulders of yesteryear’s autocrats alone. Rendering failures endogenous and personalist, the theoretical and empirical shortcomings of global neoliberalism more generally can be laundered and obscured. Having done so, post-2011 policymakers can offer the same medicine while promising this time will be different. Grounded in policy translation studies, through content and discourse analyses as well as non-structured interviews, this paper will scrutinize how and why the neoliberal policy paradigm endures and evolves in Jordan. Tracing the linkages – discursive, institutional, and social – connecting IFIs, elite policymaking circles, and the IAF, I will first attempt to establish the sociology of neoliberal hegemony and the processes through which it localizes in this context. Having done so – and now borrowing from a number of critical, heterodox approaches to comparative capitalism research - I will explain why these policies only portend more social dislocation in Jordan while simultaneously presenting acute threats to the political and economic health of the nation as well.
Discipline
International Relations/Affairs
Geographic Area
Jordan
Sub Area
Development