MESA Banner
"Who Is Going to Reform This Country?": Call in Radio, Complaint, and Celebrity as Tools of Conservative Politics in Jordan
Abstract
For over 10 years Mohammad Al Wakeel has hosted a daily call-in radio show soliciting complaints from Jordanians about everything from potholes to the youth unemployment crisis. He rails against corrupt officials and bemoans the inability of Jordanians to live with dignity due to poverty and want. To his supporters, he delivers miracles: helping young people fight through opaque bureaucracy to find employment or providing funds for lifesaving surgeries. Yet his detractors refer to him scathingly as "the King's dog", a regime stooge. This paper examines Mohammad al Wakeel, and the variety of imitators who have sprung up based on his success, as a conduit of and barrier to reform and broader political change in the country. On the one hand, his show provides a forum for publicly airing political grievances and provides lifesaving help for the poor. On the other, he handles them in such a way that transforms issues such as infrastructure, healthcare, employment, and police abuse as individual, social issues. Rather than advocating for systemic change or political organization, Wakeel develops a parallel petition and patronage system. He continually uses the language of reform and corruption in a way that many Jordanians suspect is a considered attempt to allay genuine political grievance while also serving as a "pressure valve" and a way to alert the regime towards its most pressing needs. Drawing on ethnography and discourse analysis I argue that Wakeel functions as a prime example of celebrity politics in neoliberal authoritarian settings.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Jordan
Sub Area
None