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Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120

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Political Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/polgeo

Tunnel-bypasses and minarets of capitalism: Amman as neoliberal assemblage

Christopher Parker*

Faculty of Political and Social Science, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Keywords:NeoliberalismState spatializationAgency formationGovernmentalityMiddle EastJordan

* Tel.: þ32 9 264 69 55; fax: þ32 9 264 69 97.E-mail address: christopher.parker@ugent.be

0962-6298/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.12.004

a b s t r a c t

Mainstream accounts of Arab political life highlight endogenous political legacies to explain the persistenceof illiberal regime outcomes in the face of global pressures for transition and newness. Meanwhile, thegovernment of people and places across the Middle East and North Africa is being transformed by powerfulmodels of pedagogy and practice derived from the laws of the market. Consider Jordan. The landscape ofgovernment is being reconfigured viadinter aliadSpecial Economic Zones, Poverty Pocket schemes,Development Corridors, community empowerment initiatives, urban regeneration projects, gatedcommunities, planned satellite cities, and new systems of movement and connection. The scope and politicalsignificance these arrangements may not be revealed through examination of the institutions and coalitionstraditionally associated with Arab regimes. A different picture emerges, however, if one explores thischanging landscape of government from the perspective of those governed within it. Focusing on efforts toadvance neoliberal modalities of development and government within the Greater Amman Municipality, thispaper charts global connections giving rise to powerful agencies that have been elided by regime-centricinquiry, and considers what they imply for currently dominant modalities of thinking about and acting uponArab political life. Along theway, it also recovers a sense of the subaltern globalism of people and places elidedby efforts to extract theory from dominant accounts of contemporary globalization.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transformations without transition styles of socioeconomic and political performance at the expense of

1 This essay is based on fieldwork conducted during regular extended visits toAmman over the past 9 years. Most of this fieldworkdwhich consisted in activitiesranging from interviews to archival research to participant observationdwas done inservice of other, related projects. My concern here has been to bring this research

Political scientists are rarely attuned to the ways in whicha changing cityscape might reflect emerging configurations ofpower. Yet, if one explores the new systems of movement andconnection being etched into cityscapes across the Middle East,these concrete structures tell a story of transformation that hasbeen lost in transition-oriented accounts of Arab political life.

Consider Amman. Driving through streets congested by the spill-over of the Iraq war, Jordan’s capital appears as a city of big holes. Inbetween detours necessitated by work at strategic points along thecity’s road network, one encounters numerous fenced off construc-tion zones spruced up with billboards that provide a glimpse of theglittering future in store for the site. In passing, these unfinishedprojects look more like a series of planned accidentsd wreckage atthe intersection of channels carved by flows of oil wealth andwardthan a consistent reflection of global commitments. But closerinspection reveals something more. Amman is being remade andpresented to investors as a new city that conforms to globalisedbenchmarks of speed, efficiency, and connectivity. Places and pop-ulations are being distinguished according to market calculations(e.g., Ong, 2000), and repositioned in proximity to regulatoryensembles that reformat calculative space in ways that enable certain

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others (Callon,1998: 2, 22; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Sidaway, 2007). Inshort, the changing cityscape reflects efforts to bring private agenciesand market-oriented solutions to bear on traditional problems ofgovernment (e.g., economic and social development, distribution ofpublic goods and services, maintenance of the commons, security,etc). Via strategies of selective destructiondand through thedeployment of new infrastructural and regulatory ensemblesdtheprojects underpinning this change set out to ‘‘create a social realitythat [neoliberal discourse] suggests alreadyexists’’ (Lemke, 2000: 59).

Focusing on developments within the Greater Amman Munici-pality (GAM), the following remarks call attention to sites ofpolitical innovationdfrom community empowerment initiatives todevelopment corridors and master plansdthat have been largelyelided by the statist-institutional perspective of mainstreamcomparative politics.1 Insofar as such arrangements have beennoted at all in contemporary accounts of Arab political life, it istypically because their failure to aggregate in ways that reflect

together to advance a broad but grounded critique of contemporary perspectives onpolitical continuity and change in the Middle East, and to make a critical contributionto the debates on state-space relations and agency formation that have inspired me inthis effort.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120 111

globalist assumptions can be taken as evidence of their deforma-tion by endogenous legacies of state building and regime consoli-dation (e.g., Heydeman, 2007; Ottoway & Dunne, 2007; andSchlumberger, 2008). Guided by the tropes of neo-institutionaltheory, observers turn inward to unearth the embedded norms,strategic dilemmas, and structured imbalances of power that mightbe held responsible for the non-occurrence of transition. And theresulting evidencedderived as much from a particular way oflooking at and thinking about the political world as from any realinsight into lived political experiencedis in turn invoked to prob-lematise Arab political life in ways that justify techno-politicalintervention.

Focusing on connections rather than institutions, I show howgovernment in Jordan is being channelled into arrangements thatarticulate incumbent elite power to wider networks of finance andtechnocratic expertise. I also demonstrate how the resulting agenciesleverage state power to defend ‘market requirements’ against theclaims of deliberative citizenship. As such, my account is consistentwith the wider literature on neoliberal state practice (e.g., Harvey,2005; Peck, 2005; etc.). At the same time, however, I have sought togo beyond this critique to explore both (i) the globally distributedtransactions, claims, and practices that intersect to give rise to gov-erning configurations at any given moment in time and space, and (ii)the infrastructures and mediators (human and non-human) thatconnect any given site to distant others involved in its formation(Latour, 2005; Mitchell, 2002). The point is to de-essentialize theassumed interplay between ‘global’ and ‘local,’ and focus instead onthe encounters, connections, exclusions and erasures – bothcontingent and structured – that underpin the production of politicalagency at given moments in space and time. By bringing non-humans into the focus of political investigation, it becomes easier todemystify the ‘inbetweenness’ (Jonas, 2006; see Marston, Jones, &Woodward, 2005) of scales while still taking into account theirpower as devices for structuring convincing narratives and claimsabout the political world (Collinge, 2006; Tsing, 2000).

I begin by sketching the re-emergence of Amman as a space ofglobal engagement and entanglement over the 20th century, andtracing the globally distributed genealogy of dislocations, claims,interests and practices that gave rise to the ‘local’ contexts that(neo)liberals problematise and seek to reorder. I then explore theactual work of reassembling given artifacts, discourses and objectsof government in ways congenial to neoliberal modalities of state-craft. This focus on assemblage makes it possible to show howneoliberal projects preserve and assimilate ‘authentic’ socialconfigurations (e.g., the community) into hegemonic projects ofaccumulation. The two subsequent sections discuss how localagencies are formed out of global connections, and defended withreference to a neoliberal rhetoric of order. Case studies include theAbdali urban regeneration project (Amman’s ‘new global down-town’) and the recently published Amman Master Plan. I also look atspaces of neoliberal performance and pedagogy. Finallydreturningto the longer history of global engagement that has been etched intothe citydI explore the political potentialities contained in the gapsand transgressions that have been all too easily overlooked in scale-based accounts of neoliberal hegemony (e.g., Brenner, 2001), and tothe violence involved in enforcing this elision.

2 In the early 1920s, Amman spanned 6 km2. The GAM now encompasses ca.1700 km2.

City of migrants; kingdom of speed

‘‘No more riots, no need for much repression; to empty the streets,it’s enough to promise everyone the highway’’dPaul Virilio(2006a: 49).

In a country that boasts Petra, Wadi Rum, crusader era castles,coral reefs, and significant remnants of biblical, Greco-Roman,

Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations, Jordan’s Royal AutomobileMuseum hardly sits atop tourist itineraries. Yet, no other site sosuccinctly expounds the changes currently underway in theKingdom. Together with the new Hashemite Royal Courtcompound, the new royal guesthouse, and the massive new KingHussein Mosque, the museum is part of a complex that crowns thehilltop overlooking the King Hussein Memorial Gardens in north-west Amman. Inside, one finds an exhibit of cars owned by the lateKing Hussein, and assorted vehicles used by the Hashemites atcrucial moments in Jordan’s history. The impressive collection is ofobvious appeal to car-lovers. But it is what the cars are arranged tosay that is truly remarkable: they advance a revised narrative ofHashemite modernization, one that illustrates the taming of theTransjordanian frontier (and, by extension, the frontiers ofcontemporary globalism) with the resources of ever-increasingspeed.

Near the entrance, a series of photographs show the dustypedestrian streets of 1920s Amman transformed into wide, 21stcentury thoroughfares that channel continuous streaks of red andwhite light between modern, high-rise buildings. In less thana century, Amman has been transformed from a sparsely inhabitedstop along the Hijaz railway into a landscape of constant, rapidcirculation inhabited by 3 million people.2 The automobiles displaythe qualities and personae of statecraft: a Cadillac acquired byAbdullah I soon after he arrived in Amman in 1920 allowed him tomove quickly between his British patrons and the local constitu-encies as he assembled a base for his rule. Other cars served inofficial parades. King Hussein waved from a stylish convertible onnational holidays; while a military vehicle and rugged attire werechosen for public appearances in more trying times. Toward theend of the exhibit, one finds videos of Hussein piloting racecars.Indeed, the exhibit seems curated to redefine the official persona ofthe late king: he is no longer the prudent statesman, a traditionalleader in touch with modern sensibilities, but a playboy whorelishes the speed and risk of the racetrack, an image he worked toplay down during his lifetime.

A film shown in the screening room at the front of the exhibitintroduces Abdullah II as a leader who has inherited and developedthese dromocratic skillsdskills practiced through leisure activitiesthat extend seamlessly from his day at the office. The film, entitledThe Royal Tour, opens with a motorcycle racing toward the cameraon a long, straight stretch of highway in the Rum desert. Uponreaching the camera, the black-clad rider stops and removes hishelmet to reveal himself as Jordan’s current monarch. Abdullahfollows up on this cinematic entry by taking viewers with him as hepilots his helicopter over green fields, flies ultra-light aircraftthrough the majestic desert landscape of Wadi Rum, and repelsdown sheer rock cliffs into the turbulent waters of Wadi Mujibcanyon. The video crafts the image of a man in tune with today’sadventure-seeking global business elite; a leader who sets targetsand wants deadlines met yesterday. ‘‘Is everyone in the royal familysuch a daredevil?’’ asks the impressed narrator as Abdullah’sbrother Faisal jumps the waves on his jet-ski. ‘‘Well,’’ the kingreplies, ‘‘let’s just say that we like calculated risk.’’ At the same time,however, respect for traditiondfamily, community, history, etc-dare reassuringly woven into the narrative. Abdullah characterizescamel-riding Bedouin as ‘‘the soul of Jordan;’’ Crown Prince Hashimpours tea for Abdullah after their shared ‘extreme adventure’ inWadi Mujib; and care is taken to brush back the sands of time toreveal Jordan’s links to ancient civilizations. In short, Abdullah isshown as an entrepreneurial leader versed in the calculus of risk

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120112

management, and as a reliable shepherd of the various communi-ties that serve as a repository for obligations devolved from a stateundergoing neoliberal reforms.

But how did we arrive in a political world where speed is king? Ifwe are to take seriously the idea of a world being remade by globalflow, then speeddas an intrinsic attribute of flowdprovidesa metric against which the varying capabilities of populations canbe distinguished, problematised, and presented for techno-politicalintervention. Concurrently, the infrastructures that direct andregulate the speed of flow, together with the techniques formanaging the risks arising from a world of constant and rapidcirculation, become constituent agencies of political order; theyreposition places and populations within the increasingly frag-mented space-time of the nation, and open them to the incentivesand discipline of market forces. The ability to fly high and drivefastdto move quickly between distinct regulatory spaces andmaintain the effect of an elevated centre overseeing an integratedand coherent wholedbecomes an essential attribute of managerialgovernment. As The Royal Tour takes us between sites separated bywide-open spaces, this work of assemblage seems naturalisticenough. Places and populations lie in wait for the tourism andinvestment that will open them to a world renewed by globalmarket forces. By contrast, the job of reassembling Ammandofunravelling dense pathways of connection accumulated within thecrowded streets of a city that has (supposedly) yet to ‘go global,’and rearticulating them in line with neoliberal assumptionsdmoreclearly reveals the work that lies behind the exhibition’s remark-able polemic.

Amman’s topography does not encourage speed. A city of refu-gees and migrants, Amman’s inhabitants arrived in waves thatresonate with the convulsions of the landscape upon which theysettled. The steep hills of the city’s affluent western quarters pokesharply toward the densely populated slopes of East Amman, whichroll in gently from the eastern steppe only to crest and fallprecipitously into the downtown. This natural setting reinforceddistinctions between groups. It provided shelter for the reconsti-tution of communities displaced by war,3 and facilitated efforts todelineate and manage the constituent communities of monarchicrule. But it also, by virtue of sheer gravitational force, generatedflows that spiralled downward to meet in the narrow valley floorbelow. Never a convenient place for cars, Amman’s city centre wasconnected to the surrounding neighbourhoods by steps thatbrought people of diverse origins down to the city centre. For some,this heterogeneity reflected a lack of authenticity; it confirmedAmman’s status as an artificial entity created to serve the purposesof alien forces. But this diversity has also been a source of Amman’sresilience in the face of the great shocks it has absorbed over thepast 60 years. The city’s disparate histories and spacesdeachreflecting its own web of global entanglementddemandedconstant negotiation. Its various tributaries were spun into a web ofaccumulated inertia, trapping a million trajectories of displacementand flight.

In the turbulent 1950s, downtown Amman provided the stagefor considerable political ferment. Over the years, however, thedowntown’s political significance declined. The arrival of some300,000 displaced Palestinians during and after the 1967 Warconsolidated new centres of gravity in eastern and western parts ofthe city, introducing tensions that culminated in the bloody episodeof Black September (1970). Subsequently, wider boulevards werecut through the refugee camps and popular quarters of EastAmman, opening them to surveillance and military intervention.

3 Circassians and Chechens arrived in the 19th century, Palestinians in the 20th,and now Iraqis in the 21st.

Meanwhile, work opportunities in the oil-rich Gulf drew people offthe downtown streets and onto the highway, relieving the politicaltensions that built after 1967. Paralleling today’s situation, moneypoured into Amman from the Gulf via grants, investments andremittances. The new wealth gave rise to the financial district andupper class neighbourhood of Shmesani. The 400,000 Jordaniancitizens who returned to Jordan after the 1991 Gulf War furtheraccentuated the divide between east and west. Million-dollar villassprung up in the Abdoun neighbourhood of Western Amman, whileinformal settlements proliferated in outlying areas of the East.

Whereas an earlier effort at master planning had been shelved asa result of the fiscal crisis of the late-1980s,4 officials eventuallyinvoked planning methodologies to confront growing demographicand political pressures. In 1995, the GAM was removed from thejurisdiction of the Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affairs andplaced under the tutelage of the Prime Minister’s office. Breakingwith a robust tradition of open municipal elections, the newarrangement stipulated that the mayordtogether with half of themunicipal councildwould be appointed by the PM. While widelyinterpreted as a move to counter the rising influence of Islamists onthe municipal council, it also rendered Amman amenable to tech-nocratic initiative. However, the resulting possibilities remainedunexplored until Abdullah’s ascension in 1999. The new king movedquickly to integrate Jordan into arrangements regulating globaltrade and finance, joining the WTO in 2000, and entering into FreeTrade Agreements with the USA and EU in 2001 and 2002, respec-tively. He also signalled that Amman would be a showcase for effortsat modernizing government in Jordan, and charged mayor NidalHadid with advancing this vision. With the elected half of thecouncil effectively limited to negotiating modalities of imple-mentation, a new generation of technocrats and entrepre-neursdarmed with Anglo-Saxon MBAs and PhDsdbegan to maketheir mark. Drawn from Jordan’s existing elite families, this youngguard realised that their fortunes were best served by leveragingstate power to engage in wider networks of accumulation andinfluence. They provided the backbone of new, quasi-formalizedeconomic decision-making bodies, and took part in the newagencies and governance networks being supported by USAID andother donors. They were also fascinated by the transformation of thesmall Gulf sheikhdoms into hypermodern centres of finance, busi-ness, commerce, and tourism. The post-war reconstruction ofcentral Beirut provided another model (Summer, 2005). With donorsupport, efforts were made to mobilize these same planning andfinancial networks to refashion Amman as a global ‘destination city,’generating development through foreign investment and tourism.

Reassembling Amman

‘‘The speed with which the government has to act in order to attractinvestments can take society by surprise and cause a lot oftalk.this is the way the world works. Countries that cater to speedwill win and others that let cumbersome bureaucracy get in theway will lose’’dKing Abdullah II (Ruwashdeh, 2008).

Hadiddsoon dubbed ‘the mayor of tunnels and bridges’dinitiatedthis effort with projects designed to bypass obstacles along thearteries that link Amman’s new city hall, which stands ona vast traffic island at the western edge of the old city centre, tovarious centres of West Amman. One segment of this networkfacilitates rapid movement from City Hall to Shmesani and

4 Jordan borrowed heavily throughout the 1980s in order to sustain the effectscreated by the boom of the 1970s, leaving the state with debt on the order of 200%of GDP by late-1988. Structural adjustment followed in April 1989.

5 Announcing plans for a Special Economic Zone in Mafraq, then-Prime MinisterMarouf Bakhit stressed that investors ‘‘will enjoy all the privileges and exemptions’’accorded at other similar sites in the Kingdom (Al-Abed, 2006).

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120 113

Amman’s projected ‘new downtown’dthe al-Abdali UrbanRegeneration Project (discussed below). Another leads from CityHall up to Abdoun, an affluent suburb housing Amman’s politicaland economic elite and the US Embassy/USAID compound. Withthe recent completion of a stylish suspension bridge, a third arterylinks Jebel Abdoun to Shmesani and Abdali, articulating a triangularfusion of international finance, supranational authority, and localstate.

Roughly bisecting this triangle, five of the eight traffic circlesalong Zahran Streetdtraditionally used to denote neighbourhoodsin Jebel Ammandhave also been transformed into tunnel-bypasses. From the Third Circlednow a tunnel-bypass situated onthe axis between the city hall and Shmesanidone can driveunimpeded to the Jordan Gate complex at Sixth Circle, a projectthat will be crowned by two high-rise office towers visible from allparts of Amman. Third and Fifth Circles have been partially ringed-in by five-star hotels, representing the transformation of spacesthat provided focal nodes for neighbourhoods into sites of transientglobal connection. Le Royale Hotel on the Third Circle is particularlynoteworthy: designed to reflect the form of the 9th century spiralminaret of Samara in Iraq, ‘‘This massive building, accompanied bythe [tunnel-bypass] construction on the Third Circle.has not onlyaltered the pattern of [the Third Circle neighbourhood] but has alsoaltered the historical linkages in its urban pattern’’ (Abu Ghazalah,2006: 157) (Fig. 1).

Heading south from the Seventh Circle, Jordan’s main north–south highway straddles another area slated for high-end rede-velopment and cuts through a new investment corridor thatstretches some 50 km starting from just below the Jordan Gate toal-Jiza, a lumpenproletarian settlement just south of Amman’sinternational airport. From the airport, the highway traverses thedesert toward the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority, anadministratively independent state-owned corporation thatgoverns 400 km2 and some 100,000 people in and around Jordan’sonly seaport. Before reaching the Airport, the north–south highwayintersects with the Amman Development Corridor Project. Co-financed by the Country Assistance Program of the World Bank andthe European Investment Bank, the project promises to act as ‘‘acatalyst for economic development and expansion’’ by ‘‘enhancingconditions for growth led by the private sector’’ (World Bank,2004). The axis of the initiative is a 40 km stretch of highway thatwill serve as the southern-most segment of the Greater AmmanRing Road, improving communications to existing QualifyingIndustrial Zone (QIZ) facilities at Sahab, and opening a further300 km2 of land for development. A variety of tax holidays andother incentives have been provided to encourage investment.Meanwhile, official documents promise to preserve the customs oftribal communities.

The ring road also provides a direct link between the deserthighway and the Zarqa Eastern Bypass. From here, traffic is sortedeastward toward Baghdad, and northwest along a new route thatreconnects with the main north–south highway some 10 km aboveAmman. This route allows drivers to bypass Baqa’ refugee camp,which straddles the main highway just north of the capital. Fromthere, the highway continues north past another QIZ cluster inIrbid, and past a projected Special Economic Zone at Mafraq, beforecontinuing on to Damascus. Jordan’s peace treaty with Israelenables truckers to turn left at Irbid, and move goods to the USA viaHaifa.

Taken together, these projects impact upon the city in ways thatpush the East further east, distancing popular elements of thedowntown from the spaces being opened up for high-end invest-ment in Western quarters of the city (see Fig. 2 below). This isreinforced by the recent reorganization of public transport (a.k.a.‘the mule of the government’). Before being designated as Amman’s

new downtown, Abdali was the main hub for public transport tothe north, and an important node in the popular life of the city. AsAbdali has now been set aside for luxury consumption and prestigebusiness investment, the public transportation hub has beenmoved to Tabarbur, thus cleansing Abdali of elements associatedwith the popular life of the ‘old downtown.’ Similarly, the bus-station at Raghadan (adjacent to the ancient Roman theatre) hasbeen transformed into a tourist centre, and public transport redir-ected 3 km eastward to Mahatta. These changes have causedconsiderable disruption for commuters. Informal hubs have sprungup in defiance of planners. However, plans to fully privatize publictransportationdturning it over to a single, private provider andthereby introducing logics of scale and efficiency that might provevery different from those of most usersdwill likely underminegrassroots appropriation of the new spatial network.

By precipitating the rise of an order in which speed, efficiency,flexibility, and global connectivity become essential criteria ofpolitical selection, this network of highways, tunnel-bypasses andbridges does more than simply provide technical solutions to thechanging circumstances of modern life. It opens places and pop-ulations to ‘‘a dromocratic order of great invasions’’ (Virilio, 2006b:113), giving rise to agencies engineered to advance one particularmatrix of global connection at the expense of others. And in doingso, it reveals itself as a powerful tool for the regulation of humanlife. But while pavement, steel and concrete can be rolled out toenable and direct the flow, they do not set it in motion. Neoliberalsmust find ways of producing and representing difference in order togenerate the very flows that appear to confirm their logic. Ifneoliberal globalism produced homogeneity across space and time,the logic underlying movement would dissipate. Neoliberal ‘inva-sions’ thus ultimately depend on sites of occupation. And occupa-tions signal not victory, but the onset of new struggles that in turncarve their own channels and narratives of connection. They callattention to the points of collision where hierarchies (together withhigh-rises) are pushed up, and around which borders are drawn,monitored and defended. Neoliberal globalism is thus not about theliquid destiny of flow. After all, the flashy cars make their point wellenough even when parked inside.

Spaces of exemption and privilege5

‘‘You only need to open your eyes and discover the world that is tobecome the new downtown . marvel at the physical features ofa setting [arranged] in complete accordance with how its residentsmove and make their way in every space’’dpromotional material,www.abdali.com.

Neoliberal development discourse justifies itself through anappeal to ‘the global.’ Much like modernization in past decades,globalization is today presented as a force external to, and hencebeyond the scope of, political agency articulated at any particularpoint on the globe. As such, it provides a backdrop against whichthe various projects involved in its making can be made to seem notonly technical and political neutral, but also historically inevitable.

More than any other contemporary ideological project, neolib-eralism has absorbed the charisma of popular, post-Cold Waraccounts of globalization to make its claims appear authoritativeand effective. Somewhat paradoxically, however, it is the local scalethat has proven a particularly useful platform for global ambitions.By virtue of its proximate links with irreducible scales of social

34

21

5678rhaZ Street an

Abdali

East-West dividing line

To AirportAqaba

To Baqa`/ Irbid / Damascus

USEmbassy

Wahdat Camp

Jabal Nadhif

Al Hussein Park

Downtown area

City Hall

Abdoun

Shmeisani

© C. Parker and M. Ababsa (2008)

Tabarbur terminal

City Mall

Mecca Mall

Mega Mall

RaghadanTerminal

MahattaTerminal

Old AbdaliTerminal

High-end Development zones

1 km

Fig. 1. Reassembling the city.

6 This formulation is inspired by Callon and Muniesa (2005).7 In 2007 Jordan ranked ninth on the A.T. Kearney Globalization Index, eighth on

UNCTAD’s index of Foreign Direct Investment, and in the second of five tiers on theBertelsmann Transformation Index. Amman won the 2007 World Leadership City ofthe Year Award for Asia and the Near East.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120114

organization (e.g., individual bodies and households), the urbanmilieu is seen to provide a malleable spatial container within whichto reformat the life-world in ways congenial to modalities ofgovernment that prioritize the market as an instrument forexpressing, aggregating and informing public choices. Municipaladministration poses as an arena of practical problem solving freeof the inertia associated with agencies organized at the nationalscale. By effecting the juxtaposition of local and global scales,neoliberal policy initiatives seek to articulate pathways ofconnection that harmonize the link between the individual (irre-ducible unit) and the global (universal principle), thereby resolvingtensions built into the organizing dichotomies of liberal politicalthought (e.g., individual-collective, state-market, private-public,etc) in ways that advance individual liberty, anddby virtue ofmarket-derived mechanisms of aggregation and regulationdtheliberty of society as a whole. At the same time, however, this reli-ance on scale as a strategy of organization and naturalizationprovides a clue that the supposedly boundless logic of neoliberalglobalism depends for its realization on the deployment ofboundaries and hierarchies.

Perhaps the most obvious sense in which this is so regards theways in which neoliberalism puts places and spaces in competitionwith each other for infusions of private investment and financialcapital. Almost per definition, this competition implies a compar-ison across similar socio-spatial units distributed across the globe.Scale-talk allows for the classification and ranking of spaces andpopulations with reference to categories and hierarchies thatappear to be universally valid. By reconfiguring complex socialrealities into statistically comparable objects, it makes space legiblewithin the wider matrix of competition that provokes the move-ment of capital.

Scale is, as such, a calculative device: a common operatingprinciple that conditions the ability of actors to imagine and esti-mate the consequences of a particular course of action. It refers toa strategic matrix of infrastructures and technologies that detachpeople and places from the complexity of lived political experience,representing them as mathematical expressions within an

ostensibly neutral regime of accounting. The distinctions thusproduced are not inherent in the nature of the places or spacesbeing compared, but are at least in part produced by techniques andinfrastructures that encourage some kinds of connections andcomparisons at the expense of others.6 Worked into a diverse arrayof indexes that rank the performance of countries on the basis ofindicators that claim to measuredinter aliadglobalization (e.g.,A.T. Kearney Inc.), democratization (e.g., Freedom House), trans-formation (e.g., Bertelsmann), corruption (Transparency Interna-tional), investor friendliness (World Bank), and urban governance(UN Habitat), the criteria that underpin these accounting regimesbecome mechanisms of discipline. They act upon the objects andarrangements of government so as to encourage (at least theoutward appearance of) conformity with ‘global norms,’ therebydetermining patterns of investment and global engagement. Assuch, they enable the exercise of power at a distance.

Jordan has scored well on many such indexes,7 and newagencies (e.g., the Jordan Investment Board, the Amman Institute,etc) have been created with the aim of advancing these scores stillfurther. The expansion of Amman’s municipal boundaries was itselfa move designed to enable the redistribution ofdfor exam-pledpoverty, and dilute its potentially ranking-lowering effectsacross a wider field of measurement and regulation. In practice,these indexes measure not conformity with universal principles,but the production of business-friendly effects within arrange-ments that each market a particular regulatory advantage to attractthe flows of transnational capital valorised by neoliberal develop-ment theory. State agencies become ‘entrepreneurial’ in thesearrangements by joining forces with, rather than acting as anexternal source of regulation upon, the private sector. The private

Madaba

Al Jizah

Salt

To Dea

d Sea

to jordan Valley

To Irbid

Zarqa

To Aqaba

GAM in 2006

GAM in 2007 Industrial Zones

Airport Corridor al-Jizah

Amman Development Corridor

© C. Parker and M. Ababsa (2008) 10 km

J N

Jabal al-Nadhif

Projected ring roadsProjected growth areas

Al- Kutayfah

Al-Muwaqer

Sahab

Fig. 2. Redistributing the poor.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120 115

and public sectors are no longer adversaries, but partnersdoftentogether with NGOs and donor agenciesdin setting, implementing,and administering policy initiatives in areas that were traditionallyseen as the preserve of state authorities. State agencies intervene tominimize transaction costs for investors who can choose betweencompeting places across the globe (risk is removed from the privateinvestor and redistributed across the public at large); and theybecome stakeholders whose return on investment is valorised asa public good. This in turn leads to a situation in which governmentbecomes accountable to investors (naturalized as ‘market require-ments’) over and above citizens. Meanwhile, the tendency toevaluate these arrangements against statistically-rendered globalnorms disguises both the ‘‘varied and often quite illiberal forms ofsocial and political rule’’ (Sparke, 2006: 153; see also Swyngedouw,2000) that go into their making, and the specific configurations ofinterest and practice that emerge within each particular complex.These illiberal forms do not reflect the persistence of endogenousinstitutions, but are entangled within wider, emergent webs ofglobal engagement and agency.

Consider Mawared’s Abdali Urban Regeneration Project.Mawared (The National Resources Investment & DevelopmentCorporation), is a financially and administratively independentstate-owned corporation set up to oversee the transfer ofmilitary sites to private developers. According to its website(www.mawared.jo), Mawared is committed to ‘‘generatingconsiderable investment opportunities for the private sector,

creating job opportunities, and stimulating economic growth.’’It presents itself as ‘‘the ideal partner for the private sector,’’offering ‘‘flexible partnership formulas,’’ and facilitating ‘‘thesmooth processing of official dealings.’’ The corporation istechnically owned by the Jordanian military. The king sits atopits board of directors, and proceeds from the projects, it over-sees are invested in the military pension fund and other mili-tary-related projects.

Mawared started out with 80 ha in the Abdali district of Amman,12 ha of land in Aqaba, and 2500 ha of land in Zarqa. The land inAqaba was quickly sold for redevelopment as a luxury seasideresidential community. The land in Zarqa has been slated forredevelopment as a mixed-income residential city, dubbed Madi-nat ash-Sharq (City of the Orient), with a projected 500,000inhabitants. But it is the $1.5 billion Abdali project that is the jewelin Mawared’s crown. Promising ‘‘a new downtown [and a] lifestyleof global connectivity and cultural significance’’ (MAWAREDnewsletter, 14 October 2003), plans centre around investment ininformation technology, medical tourism, higher education, andhigh-end commercial and residential real estate. In order to attractglobal investors, the land was offered to private developers at well-below market price, and regulations regarding the buying andselling of finished properties within Abdali are more relaxed thanthose governing real estate investment in the country at large(Marroushi & Ford, 2006), thus minimizing risk and promising highreturns.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120116

The case also illustrates how state authority becomes entwinedwith private agency: Mawared has formed a 50/50 joint venturewith Oger Jordan (a subsidiary of Saudi Oger) to form AbdaliInvestment and Development (AID), a private land developmentcompany. AID has in turn formed a partnership with the Kuwaitiinvestment group KIPCO, while DAMAC and EMAARdboth UAE-based firmsdare spearheading the development of high-riseapartment complexes within the site. The international scope of thenetwork has recently been extended with the establishment ofMawared International, capitalized at $1 billion in Luxemburg. Asthe Abdali site becomes entwined in webs of investment, planning,and donor funding, the king (and the state agency he represents)increasingly appears as but one of many elevated nodes in a powernetwork that spans the globe. That state agencies prioritize inves-tors over citizens is evidenceddinter aliadby the ways in whichthe GAM has intervened (under pressure from Mawared) toexpropriate the land surrounding the site in order to build thenecessary service infrastructure.

The GAM is itself involved in several similar initiatives, thelargest being the $1.25bn Royal Metropolis, which consists of twointerrelated projects: the Royal Village, a gated community abut-ting the Dead Sea highway; and the Jordan Gate, two high-risebusiness towers with a shopping mall located on the sixth Circle.The GAM contributed the land in exchange for a 10% stake. TheRoyal Metropolis was conceived as the flagship development of theairport investment corridor. This initiative includes plans for, interalia, a ‘media city,’ a ‘sport city,’ a ‘health city,’ a ‘UniverCity,’ andeven a privately-developed ‘Government city’ that will be rented tostate agencies out along the highway. Meanwhile, gated commu-nities with names like Greenland and al-Andalusia are springing upon the western side of the highway, while industrial estates andlow-income housing projects (discussed below) have been plannedsouth and east of the corridor. In short, planners are creatingenclavesdartificial ‘cities’ made safe for capitalismdthat bypassAmman itself.

On 12 September 2006, 2 Egyptian construction workers werekilled and 16 others injured when 3 stories of the Jordan Gate’snorth tower collapsed during construction. The event galvanizedlocal residents whodbacked by protests from within the EngineersAssociationdbegan to raise concerns about the project. Criticsnoted that the GAM had appropriated the land for the Jordan Gatefrom its original owner with the intent of creating a public park(Ababsa, 2007). Furthermore, little consideration had been given tothe extreme traffic congestion that would result; nor had theimpact of the towers on local water and sewage infrastructuresbeen considered. Finally, there was concern about the GAM’sfinancial stake in the project: how, asked residents, could the GAMbe both a financial stakeholder in the project and represent theconcerns of citizens? Concerns had been raised during early stagesof the project, but did not gain momentum because ‘‘everyone wasblinded by the money.’’8 The controversy led to the dismissal ofMayor Hadid, who was replaced by Omar Maani, a prominentbusinessman. The GAM sold its shares to Bayan Holdings at a lowprice with the stipulation that Bayan take measures to develop thepublic infrastructure around the site. A split had begun to emergebetween ‘developers’ and ‘speculators,’ and the GAM introducednew requirements on investors to act in the public interest. At firstglance, the Jordan Gate incident seemed to represent a minorvictory for collective public action. But what has in fact emerged isa scheme aimed at providing a tighter framework of market- andcommunity-oriented self-regulation.

8 Interview with Khalid Neimat, Amman, April 2007.

One-stop-shop (a master plan)

‘‘Let the Shopping Begin!’’dSlogan on a billboard at the Abdalisite

In May 2006, King Abdullah called on the GAM to put forwarda ‘master plan’ for Jordan’s capital. ‘‘It is crucial,’’ he announced,‘‘that we all do our utmost to ensure that our beloved city willcontinue to be a magnet for pioneering development projects, anda fertile ground in which innovative ideas can take root andblossom’’ (Abdullah bin al-Hussein, 2006). On the surface, this callfor master planning seemed intended to introduce some order andaccountability into a growing frenzy of speculation. Around thetime of the Jordan Gate incident, nearly 350 plans for high-risebuildings had been submitted to the GAM for approval. The GAM’sreputation for favouritism was fuelling public cynicism. The MasterPlan promised a depoliticized schema that would be ‘‘followedwhatever the particular agendas of future mayors,’’ and thus breakthe pattern of nepotism that, according to critics, ‘‘marred theaesthetics of the capital and led to an overload on [the city’s]infrastructure and resources’’ (Farawati, 2007). But this emphasison transparency should not be confused with accountability topublic deliberation. On the contrary, the Master Plan transfersdecisions about the shared urban future away from traditionalinstitutions of collective deliberation and into arena of negotiationbetween capital and community stakeholders. As Gerry Post, chiefplanning consultant for the Bearing Point Group in Amman, puts it:‘‘In essence, our aim is to marry investment with communalaspirations.’’9

The GAM has adopted this idea of a social compact betweenbusinesses and communities, and has actively engaged inproducing the fictional spaces of common interest within whichsuch compacts might be forged. City Hall has played host to anarray of community consultations, expert roundtables, corporatesocial responsibility forums, etc where stakeholders negotiate theimplementation of measures dictated by ‘good governance’ and‘best practice.’ These new forms of participation are carefully cir-cumscribed to protect the imperatives of technocratic governancein general, and market requirements in particular (they are typi-cally more pedagogical than participatory). They appear inclusive,but fragment the larger political collectivity in practice, bringingsmall groups around the table one-by-one to face the coalition ofbusiness-representatives, consultants, and administrators in cityhall.

The Master Plan also uses other techniques to represent regu-latory diversity within a scheme of unity. Most notably, it scales-upthe various spaces of exemption and privilege by creating a ‘one-stop-shop,’ (a.k.a., ‘single window approval process’) that allowsinvestors to browse and compare between investment opportuni-ties in spaces under GAM jurisdiction. It does not so muchhomogenize regulatory arrangements as make difference acrossspatially distributed sites calculable and legible. It groups diverseinvestment ‘products’ and market opportunities within a singlecalculative frame in ways that make them appear as part of a larger,coherent whole.

The notion of ‘one-stop-shop’das much a command as aninstitutiondalso reveals much about the ways in which neoliber-alism regulates, incentivises, and disciplines the political subject.Neoliberalism premises development on the capacity to consume;

9 Interview, Amman, April 2008. Post was lead author of the Master Plan (whichwon the 2007 World Leadership Award in Town Planning). Post is also setting upthe Amman Institute, an urban observatory dedicated to establishing and advancingregional benchmarks of urban governance.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120 117

meanwhile, order is premised on the individual responsibilisationthat supposedly comes with participation in global consumer culture(i.e., regimes of accounting, credit, property ownership, savings,personal insurance, etc). Full participation thus requires that theassets of the poor, and their position in the cycle of production andconsumption more generally, be brought into formal circuits ofmarket regulation and exchange (e.g., De Soto, 2000).

The Master Plan invokes several spatial strategies that effec-tively dilute the impact of variables (e.g., poverty) that mightundermine Amman’s position on the above-mentioned bench-marking tables. First, it incorporates six new districts into theGAM’s jurisdiction. Overnight, Amman’s area increased from 668 to1700 km2. According to the GAM press office, this expansion is‘‘designed to make the new destinations attractive for investors andlead to the overall development of the country and its people’’(Neimat, 2007). Supplemented by negative subsidies, initiatives toencourage and enable home ownership, and new infrastructure,this manoeuvre opens up a frontier for colonization by the market.It introduces a regime of biopolitical investment that is intended tobreak the dependency of peripheral communities on stateresources, and integrate lumpenproletarian populations intoa virtuous cycle of capitalist responsibilisation bydinter aliad

creating pressures and opportunities for home ownership. Itthereby mobilizes the sanctions and incentives of the market tosecure the borderlands (Duffield, 2001).

Via the new systems of movement discussed above, people arealso directed to sites where individualized consumer preferencescan be registered, aggregated, and articulated to global networks ofproduction and exchange. This is reflected in the shopping mallsand hypermarkets that are mushrooming at various points alongthe new spatial network. The shopping mall provides a model ofneoliberal spatiality. It generates the illusion of access to ‘the worldunder one roof,’10 presenting global brands and identities withina climate-controlled and securitized container removed fromthe city itself. The mall also gives rise to a politics of fascination, thepedagogical implications of which should not be overlooked. Thedesire to shopdto participate in the heavily promoted consumercultureditself serves as an incentive to responsibilisation.

‘‘Families that live on a tight budget come to the bigger super-markets to experience a different atmosphere,’’ notes a newspaperarticle that reports on the opening of a new Carrefour hypermarketin Amman, ‘‘but prices are not what is bringing them in. ‘I think that. all the big hypermarkets are the same and expensive. If you area bargain shopper you are better off shopping at the grocers andvegetable markets in downtown Amman. I came to Carrefour todaybecause my kids like the modern atmosphere,’ Asmahan, a motherof four, told The Jordan Times’’ (Hindi, 2007). The shopping malls areeven being integrated into public health campaigns. The USAID-supported Community Project for Family Health has organizedseveral well-publicized mall-walking events. Arguments have beenmade to suggest that such flaneuring might give rise to new publicspheres (e.g., Abaza, 2001), but the argument is difficult to sustain.These venues segregate publics according to patterns of, andcapacities for, consumption (a point emphasized by the privatesecurity guards that regularly deny working-class young menentry); they echo with political emptiness.

But ‘‘Not all real estate development is about catering for luxuryliving,’’ announces an article in fDi Magazine (5 October 2006): ‘‘TheBeitna City project [will offer] budget accommodation to low-income families. [It] aims to raise the standards of an area that hasbeen long abandoned, and thus lacks the basic needs for socialand economic development. . Towers, residential buildings,

10 This being the slogan of Dubai’s Ibn Battuta Mall.

commercial centres, a hospital and university will be complete in2012.’’ The website of Beit al-Mal, the Islamic investment bankdeveloping the $350-million initiative, adds that: ‘‘The Companyhas re-organized ‘Beitna Location’ on Yarmouk Street to bea complete city.containing different commercial health, educational,residential and recreational services required by cities.forminga new modern centre of the capital. The Mega Mall will be connectedwith the surrounding mountains by bridges containing commercialshops and shopping centres’’ (www.beitna.com).11

These bridgesdalso referred to as the hanging riversdwillconnect the shopping mall at the heart of this ‘complete city’ toquarters of East Amman that together account for two-thirds of thecity’s population. And, as business is drawn away from exitingcentres, this will enable larger investors to move into Eastern partsof the city with projects designed to cater to higher income groups.Beyond integrating East Amman into dominant circuits of globalconsumption, the project will effectively function as panopticon forthe poorer neighbourhoods of East Amman. People are pulled outfrom the dense and narrow alleyways of the refugee camp anddowntown marketplaces and into a well-lit and privately policedsite of global consumption. Ultimately, the mall and shoppingcentre must be seen within a wider infrastructure of circulationthat links supermarket aisles and shopping mall promenades to theparking lots from which cars are loaded and re-launched back ontothe highway. Cars and customers are channelled into patterns ofcirculation that keep people moving along pathways open tosurveillance. And insofar as it becomes necessary for full partici-pation, the automobile becomes ‘‘a module of imprisonment thatmakes possible the production of an order’’ (de Certeau, 1988: 111).

Who is governing? The question is frequently raised in thepolitical salons and teahouses of Amman these days. Policy deci-sions that have an enormous impact on the city seem to appearfrom the ether. The very phrase Master Plan suggests the authorityof a higher order. But who or what is the master? By grantingmarket-derived methodologies for aggregating and regulatingpublic choices priority over the critical (but, according to neolib-erals, easily compromised) deliberative space of citizenship,neoliberalism holds out the promise of governing through freedom(e.g., Rose, 1999). In practice, however, this requires the actualiza-tion of a carefully circumscribed and attenuated model of freedom.It depends on the ability of experts to isolate and reassemble bits ofthe social world in spatialised containers (one-stop-shops) wherethe choices that underpin the exercise of freedom are delimited andlaid out in ways prefigure its performance in line with theassumptions of the theory. In other words, neoliberals first mobilizethe pedagogy of the market to fashion the political subjects theyclaim to liberate. Meanwhile, the contours of political life are nolonger negotiated at points where society meets the state, but atpoints where the highway meets the street: communities andpopulations (not citizens as such) find themselves negotiating theimplementation of neoliberal policy initiatives with consultants,donor agencies, NGOs, private firms, and the technocratic admin-istrators of public–private partnershipsdpeople who ride in fromout of towndand not with state authorities. And as neoliberaldevelopment discourse celebrates the involvement of privateagencies in the ‘governance’ of places and populations, it remainssilent on the potentially authoritarian implications of this shift. Thecontingent character of agencies and interests assembled at anygiven site are hidden behind the global imperative of meetingmarket requirements. Ultimately, the effectiveness of such a projectdependsdat least in partdon ignorance of its arbitrariness.

11 Consulted January 2007, text in italics has since been altered.

12 Interviews, Amman, April 2008.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120118

Cracks on the neoliberal horizon

‘‘Beyond the horizon lies a brighter future’’dbillboard slogan at‘‘al-Andalusia’’ (a gated community currently underconstruction)

‘‘Build to the East?! We cannot do that, because then peoplewould have to pass through East Amman and Wihdat’’ declareda GAM official, referring to the capital’s densely populated working-class quarters, and the Palestinian refugee camp at its heart (Ali binal-Hussein, 2007).

For the neoliberal planner, East Amman and Wihdat are prob-lemsdplaces that slow the flow. The ca. 2 million people whoactually live in the densely populated quarters of East Amman seemto exist only as a mass that gets in the way of investors who passthrough. Viewed against the global ‘destination city’ envisioned bybusinessmen and officials, Amman’s popular quarters appear asplaces of entropy and decay; they raise the proverbial spectre of the‘Arab street’ with its supposed propensity toward rejection andviolence. The obstacle to flow thus becomes a security issueinvoked to justify a wide range of policy measures designed toresponsibilise individual behaviours and govern the conduct ofpopulations prone to dependency and conflict (see, e.g., MPIC,2005: 3).

Neoliberals present the problem as one of undoing EastAmman’s exclusion from flows of capital deemed essential todevelopment. Unregistered assets must be formalized and madeavailable for market transactions, thus encouraging developmentby creating capacities for entrepreneurship and consumption. Andan infrastructure of market-regulated self-care must be situated inproximity to people and places seen as deficient in the resourcesrequired for autonomy. The role of NGOs becomes one of linkingpoor households with microfinance institutions, and advancinginitiatives designed to encourage the productive and entrepre-neurial management of assets (MPIC, 2005). In short, they arecharged with the groundwork of reassembling the life-world of thepoor in ways that make it amenable to business-led development.

Neoliberal discourse naturalizes this project by appropriatingtheoretically promiscuous (and culturally resonant) terms likecommunity, social capital, and empowerment to present its projectas authentic and emancipatory. Community, and not the state, mustbe mobilized to mitigate negative market externalities (e.g., Her-bert, 2005). Social capital replaces the rights of citizenship andcollective action as a source of mediation between the individualand market forces (e.g., Somers, 2005). And empowerment isdefined in terms of skills and resources required for autonomy inthe marketplace, and not in terms of the ability of citizens to makeclaims upon, and influence the content of, collective politicalinstitutions. Just as power is distanced from state agency anddiffused through a variety of agencies engineered to mimic thesanctions and incentives of the market, so neoliberals also seek todeflect eventual claims about legitimacy and accountability awayfrom the state and into the arena of corporate social responsibility(CSR), an innovation that embodies the notion of a neoliberal socialcompact.

Jebel al-Nadhif, a neighbourhood in east-central Amman typi-fied by poverty, crime, drug use, and informal housing, providesa prime example. Its locationdoverlooking the city hall compoundand sites set aside for business developmentdhas made it a focusof CSR efforts. Aramex, a multinational logistics company head-quartered in Amman, took the initiative to renovate the localprimary school and build a police station. It has also set up anNGOdRuwwaddto initiate and guide efforts at communityempowerment and self-reliance. Ruwwad’s director emphasizesa commitment to bypassing municipal authorities in the pursuit of

community development. Instead, members of Ruwwad’s ‘youthcorps’ attend training sessions to learn how they might effectivelyseek corporate sponsorship for community projects.12 Jebel an-Nadhif is also a focus of the GAM’s Repainting Eastern Ammancampaign. The municipality has partnered with several privatefirms to ‘‘revive and beautify the older districts of East Amman’’(Jordan Times, 2007a), thus putting ‘‘Amman on the global tourismmap by ensuring that the area is renovated without losing itsauthentic feel’’ (Hazaimeh, 2007). According to the project’s chiefconsultant, the initiative aims ‘‘to enhance the view of the oldsuburbs that overlook downtown Amman . promoting partner-ship between the GAM and citizens by empowering [the latter] topreserve the environment’’ (Hazaimeh, 2007). Mayor Omar Ma’anithanked participating businesses for ‘‘showing a true commitmentto corporate social responsibility, a concept close to the GAM’sheart’’ (Jordan Times (2007b)).

Jebel al-Nadhif’s location leaves it well positioned to attract suchschemes. It provides a visible showcasedand a bankablereturndfor the CSR portfolios of participating firms. But whatabout other, less visible poor areas? Given the obvious limits ofbringing CSR to less central poor areas, the government has beenteaming up with private firms to develop satellite cities in thevicinity of existing and planned industrial zones on the newlyannexed areas of the GAM. In short, where CSR won’t go to thepeople, people are being brought to CSR. The flagship project of thiskind is a $900 million residential city project scheduled for al-Jiza,a lumpenproletarian settlement located on the highway justbeyond Amman’s international airport. Previously an independentmunicipality, al-Jiza has also been designated as a priority PovertyPocket in the kingdom. Sponsored by USAID and the World Bank,the Poverty Pockets program seeks to mobilize NGOs, CommunityBased Organizations, and private investors to provide sustainable,market-oriented solutions to endemic poverty (Fig. 2).

In the case of al-Jiza, the land for the projectdsome 7.5 millionsquare metersdhas been transferred from the state-ownedHousing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) to a privatefirmdTaameer Jordandin exchange for shares in the project. Asthe luxury housing market has become saturated, Taameerdacompany that has been at the forefront of introducing the gatedcommunity concept to Jordandis now partnering with the GAM todesignate sites for low and low-middle-income housing develop-ment. The al-Jiza complex will include 15,000 residential unitsdesigned to accommodate a population of 84,371 (press release,Taameer Jordan, 26 June 2007). Plans also include 2010 commercialunits.

Housing units will start at around JD 21,500 (ca. $30,000), a pricebeyond the reach of the 50% of Jordanians who live below thehousing poverty line (set by the HUDC at JD392 per month for 2005).Nevertheless, Taameer promotional materials highlight studiesshowing that over 50% of Jordanians currently live in rentedaccommodation, and note that recent legislation removing rentcontrols as of 2010 will increase the desire to own houses (TaameerJordan, 2007). They further note that Taameer will be launchinga mortgage loan company offering ‘‘very competitive financingoptions.’’ Meanwhile, planners hope that airport expansion and therise of new industrial estates near al-Jiza and along the developmentcorridor will provide the jobs and income to enable repayment.Commenting on his business philosophy, Taameer Jordan ChiefExecutive Khalid Dahleh noted that ‘‘demand follows supply’’ (Taherand al-Ahmed, 2006). It certainly does, if you give it a push.

By moving poor people from downtown neighbourhoods to siteson the other side of the development corridor, planers also open

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120 119

urban space for investors. Residents of neighbourhoods like Jebelan-Nadhifdmost of whom are registered Palestinian refugee-sdhave resisted neoliberal entitlement schemes (ostensibly for fearthat formalization of property rights would be taken as evidence ofresettlement, thus undermining their right of eventual return toPalestine).13 Another goal of the project is to break the state/welfaredependency embedded in the tribal networks of the al-Jiza’sexisting community. Because of the GAM’s unique status within theJordanian polity, the newly absorbed municipalities no longer havethe right to elect their own municipal councils and cultivate systemsof patronage through statist administrative hierarchies. Neverthe-less, consistent with the neoliberal tendency to positionr thecommunity as a site for the authentication of market-orientedmodalities of rule, GAM documents stress the preservation of triballife and customs. In any case, property developers will likely provethe major beneficiaries of these schemes for redistributing the poor:they profit from the scheme to create a low-income housing market,anddas people are drawn from the downtowndthey gain access tospaces opened for gentrification.

Neoliberalism holds out the promise of rehabilitating EastAmman and its periphery by integrating it into global circuits ofcapitalist exchange. But a closer look reveals East Amman as a quin-tessentially global spacedan assemblage of people, places, andpractices that have been pushed and pulled into movement bydisplacements and dialectical movements spread over a longertrajectory of global entanglements and engagements. The image ofEast Amman as an isolated slum suggests a degree of passivity andessentialism that would seem odd to anyone familiar with thevibrant economy of its marketplaces and the subaltern cosmopoli-tanism of its inhabitants. The Palestinian refugee camp of Wihdat, forexample, is home to one of Jordan’s most vibrant produce marketsand a dizzying array of low-end consumer outlets (over 2000 shopsin total; Hamarneh, 2002). Wihdat is tied into commercial networksthat span the region. Furthermore, via the United Nations Relief andWorks Agency for Palestine refugees, some one and a half millionEast Ammanis can make claims upon a non-market, but neverthelessglobal, regime of rights, obligation, and practice.

Jordan’s capital is also home to hundreds of thousands ofEgyptian and South Asian migrant workers; and provides shelter tosome 750,000 Iraqis displaced by nearly two decades of repression,international sanctions, and military invasion. In short, EastAmman and its inhabitants have been profoundly shaped byengagement with global forces, from the upheaval of late-imperi-alism and nation-state building (resulting in the Palestiniancamps), to the displacements induced by contemporary projectsthat seek to advance neoliberal modalities of government; andthese earlier movements have in turn given rise to networks andinstitutions of global purchase that cannot be reduced to laws of themarket. Nevertheless, the image of East Amman as a space beyondthe global allows neoliberalism to present itself as a solution toproblems that it has itself (at least in part) created; it legitimizes theviolence that is essential to the maintenance of interests woveninto the fabric of liberal modernity.

Agamben suggests that ‘‘not the tracing of boundaries, but theircancellation or negation is the constitutive act of the city’’ (cited inMinca, 2007: 80). If this is so, then it is not so much the neoliberalproject with all its reliance on the spatial strategies of exemptionand scale that is the measure of Amman’s status as a global city, butthe reserves of urbanity that reside in the networks, institutions,and imaginaries of neoliberalism’s global other. These networksembrace the vast majority of the world’s human inhabitants. Bycontrast, the networks being encouraged by USAID and the World

13 Interviews with UNRWA officials, Amman, April 2007.

Bank empower only the privileged few; they give capital access tothe resources of the poor, not vice-versa. But these ostensiblyconflicting paths to the global cannot be entirely separated: theyhave met before in the cotton fields of Egypt (Mitchell, 2002), theQIZs of Jordan, and the killing fields of Iraq. The neoliberal horizonis thus no more solid or deep than the layer of paint splashed on tothe slopes of East Amman. By following the pathways of connectionbetween neoliberalism and its global other, the cracks on thispainted horizon can be identified, peeled back, and broken through.

Conclusion: neoliberalism as a destination

‘‘Only when travelling along the road, can you learn somethingabout its force.’’dWalter Benjamin

Contemporary theories of transition can accommodate the ideaof multiple pathways to the global, but have more trouble with thepossibility that the global might refer to a variety of heterogeneousand even contradictory destinations. Similarly, accounts concernedwith the non-occurrence of regime transitions in Arab political lifetypically follow the map of globalist assumptions, but ignore scopeand significance of boundaries and connections being etched intothe terrain itself. Positioning the global as something hierarchical,isomorphic, and encompassing, they problematise the politicalworld at the level of subordinate (and taken for granted) units andscales, and turn inward to unearth the endogenous path depen-dencies, structured imbalances of power, collective actiondilemmas and regime survival strategies that might explain thenon-occurrence of outcomes suggested by theory. This has led notonly to a profound misdiagnosis of the dilemmas of contemporaryArab political life, but also to a catastrophic misdirection of intel-lectual and political resources.

The evidence presented here suggests that modalities of techno-political intervention advanced by market- and transition-orientedmodalities of inquiry are unlikely to provide an antidote to theenduring power of incumbent political and economic elites in theArab world. This is not simply because neoliberal reforms enablethe reconstitution of class power by articulating it to networks offinance, government and expertise that span the planet (e.g., Har-vey, 2005); but also because such global engagements have beenthere all along. They are reflected not only in the new arrangementssketched above, but also in the very entanglements that gave rise tothe nation-state, the society, and the economy (not to mention thetheory) to begin with. They thus hint at the arbitrariness of projectshistorically associated with the advance of liberal modernity. Assuch, the non-occurrence of outcomes projected by (neo)liberaltheory should not be taken as confirmation of the deformation ofa global logic by endogenous institutional imperatives, but ratherexplored as evidence of the (often violent) contradictions that liebeneath capitalist ideology and practice.

That the ‘local’ contexts neoliberal globalism problematises andseeks to transform are themselves reflections of earlier trajectoriesof global engagement becomes clear if we start from the destina-tions as opposed to the destinies of neoliberal restructuring. If welook outward from the perspective of the governeddif we startfrom Jebel al-Nadhif, al-Jiza or Abdali rather than from assumptionsof planners and theoristsdthe global appears not hierarchical,isomorphic and encompassing, but heterarchical, emergent, andfragmentary. And while some fragments are clearly more powerfulthan others (Tsing, 2005: 271), it is only by travelling the paths thatlead to the sometimes-distant sites of their formation that wemight identify the cracks through which the assumptions andagencies of neoliberal globalism might be most effectively con-tested and transformed. The road can take us over a border, but itcan never deliver us to the global.

C. Parker / Political Geography 28 (2009) 110–120120

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sami Zemni, Jalal al-Husseini, MyriamAbabsa, Rami Daher, Nida Alahmad, Andre Bank, Omar Jabary-Salamanca, Koenraad Bogaert, Maartje Deschutter and PascalDebruyne for sharing knowledge, ideas, critique and enthusiasmduring the researching and writing of this essay. I am also gratefulfor insightful feedback provided by James Sidaway and threeanonymous reviewers.

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