Wasta in Jordan

How does wasta impact the way Jordanians view themselves as citizens and political actors? Scholarship remains divided on how exactly to view wasta, with some scholars pointing to its role in fostering in-group ties and providing a problem-solving mechanism, with others charging that wasta promotes poor governance and weak accountability. What citizens think rarely enters the picture. In this article, I argue that Jordanian citizens consider wasta a negative force in society, one that divides them from each other and makes them feel disengaged from the political life of their country. I use evidence from thirty-seven interviews with Jordanian youth, and data from the Jordanian NGO Leaders of Tomorrow’s “FADFED” initiative, a novel qualitative method for gathering opinion data from citizens. This article challenges scholars to take wasta’s role in state-society relations in the Middle East more seriously.