Personality Cult Abroad? Making Sense of Saddam Hussein imagery in authoritarian-monarchical Jordan

In the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan today, it is still striking to observe many public images of Saddam Hussein – over 15 years after the former Iraqi president died. Are these multiple images of a dictator from a neighboring country a mere coincidence or do they make visible a kind of personality cult abroad? The paper argues the Saddam images in Jordan are more than coincidence, since also non-Iraqis continue to display them. At the same time, they do not amount to a personality cult abroad because the ‘mere’ images have barely been linked to other, ‘non-visual’ political activities in direct connection with Saddam, his legacy or Iraqi politics more broadly. Rather, the images relate to the very contested nature of identity politics in an authoritarian monarchy with challenged regime legitimacy – and with a strong sense of the importance of personalist, strong-man leadership. The paper will therefore study the references to Iraq’s former dictator of different identity groups: Transjordanians, Palestinian, supporters of moderate Islamists and Iraqis in the country.