5 - Break on Through to the Other Side

Summary

The chapter discusses the convergence of neoliberalism with efforts at ‘democracy promotion’ and illustrates the precise meaning that ideals of democracy come to hold in Jordan’s only port city, Aqaba, which has come to epitomise neoliberal reform in the country. Processes of neoliberal restructuring in Aqaba have been directly supported by USAID under the assumption that they also help to enable processes of democratisation. The chapter argues that efforts at neoliberal ‘democracy promotion’ are part and parcel of a wider imperial agenda of control and domination. It illustrates this by providing an in-depth discussion of the founding of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) in 2001, the subsequent privatisation of Aqaba’s land, property and state-owned enterprises, the latter’s controversial sociopolitical effects, as well as concomitant attempts at neoliberal ‘democracy promotion’ and the further marketisation of sociopolitical life. Instead of enabling future processes of democratisation, it demonstrates that such interventions only further deprive procedural democracy of its already strongly diluted emancipatory potential, as socio-economic inequalities are radically exacerbated. The chapter is largely based on the study of various confidential and non-public documents authored and/or used by the USAID Aqaba support programmes.