Competing for Control over the State: The Case of Yemen

Abstract

This article argues that the current conflict in Yemen is better understood as a competition over who controls the state, rather than as a conflict between the state and a non-state actor. It traces the development of the Houthis and shows how the movement managed to seize key government institutions. However, the Houthis lack internal legitimacy and have not been able to position themselves as a nationally relevant political elite. The fragmentation of the Yemeni state has resulted in a shift to more localized struggles over access to resources and power that involve both internal and external actors.

Keywords:

• Insurgency
• rebel governance
• armed non-state actors
• civil war
• Yemen
• Houthis

Notes

1. Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 2; Dorlian, “The Sa’da War,” 182.

2. See Phillips, “The Norm of State-Monopolized Violence,” for an excellent discussion of how monopoly of state violence is not necessarily something all states strive for while criticizing the clear separation between state and non-state actors. The chapter focuses on the Yemeni state and al-Qaeda.

3. A few examples include Williamson (2009) where informal institutions are defined as ‘private constraints stemming from norms, culture, and customs that emerge spontaneously’ (Williamson, “Informal Institutions Rule,” 372), Pejovich (1999) who defines informal institutions as ‘traditions, customs, moral values, religious beliefs, and all other forms of behavior that has passed the test of time’ (Pejovich, “The Effects of the Interaction,” 166), Helmke and Levitsky that refer to the informal as ‘created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels (Helmke and Levitsky, “Informal Institutions,” 725) or Michael Bratton who define informal institutions as ‘patterns of patron-client relations by which power is also exercised’ (Bratton, Formal versus Informal Institutions, 97).

4. Boege et al., On Hybrid Political Orders, 17.

5. Stepputat, “Contemporary Governscapes.”

6. Alley, Yemen Changes Everything; Clausen, State-building in Fragile States; Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment; Phillips, Yemen and the Politics; Transfeld, “Political Bargaining.”

7. Perthes, Arab Elites; Sedgwick, “Measuring Egyptian Regime Legitimacy,” 254; Asseburg and Wimmen, “Dynamics of Transformation.”

8. Risse-Kappen, “Governance without a State.”

9. Hagmann and Péclard, “Negotiating Statehood.”

10. Alwazir, “Yemen’s Enduring Resistance.”

11. Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 9.

12. The UN Special Envoy has convened two rounds of talks in Switzerland that quickly collapsed, while a third round of talks in Kuwait lasted for more than 90 days but ended inconclusively in August 2016.

13. Sharif, “Weak Institutions and Democracy,” 85.

14. Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment, 80–85, Alley, “Shifting light in the Qamariyya,” 161.

15. Interview, Sana’a 2013 (3).

16. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, 1; Wedeen, Peripheral Visions.

17. Gerschewski, Three Pillars of Stability, 13–38.

18. Phillips, Yemen and the Politics, ch. 5; Clausen, State-building in Fragile States, 186.

19. Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment.

20. Alley, Yemen Changes Everything.

21. The coup in 1962 threw Yemen into a civil war that lasted until 1970, where the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), known as North Yemen, was declared. In this war, Saudi Arabia supported the royalists whereas the republicans were supported by Egypt. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, 87.

22. Occasionally, Zaydis are referred to as ‘fivers’ because the legitimacy of the fifth Imam separates them from the Twelwer Shiism that dominates outside Yemen including in Iran and Lebanon. Hamidi, “Inscriptions of Violence.”

23. At the onset of the current conflict, very few Zaydis would define themselves as Shiites. Crisis Group, “Defusing the Sa’ada Time Bomb,” 7. Some Sunnis, including forces aligned with the former president Saleh, has fought alongside the Houthis.

24. Dorlian, “The Sa’da War in Yemen,” 183. In addition to being relatively close in doctrinal terms, it seems that prior to the Houthi conflict the Yemeni educational system sought to raise the profile of Zaydi figures who could be used to narrow the doctrinal gap to the Yemeni Sunnis, International Crisis Group, Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 7.

25. Swanson, “Some Consequences of Emigration,” 34; Cohen et al., “Development from Below,” 1040.

26. Weir, “A Tribal Order,” 296–297.

27. Bonnefoy, Salafism in Yemen, 268; Haykel, “A Zaydi Revival?”; Wedeen, Peripheral Visions, 158.

28. Hamidi, “Inscriptions of Violence.”

29. Brandt, “Sufyānas Hybrid War,” 125; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 131.

30. Sarah Phillips estimates that the Believing Youths numbered between 1.000 and 3.000 in 2005. Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”

31. International Crisis Group, Yemen: Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 3; Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System”; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 133.

32. The circumstances surrounding the death of Hussein al-Houthi are unclear. He was killed in a cave where he and a few combatants and family members had sought refuge and it was subsequently claimed that he was executed as he sought to surrender himself. Hamidi, “Inscriptions of Violence,” 171.

33. See Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery; Rand, 2010 for a detailed account of all six rounds of fighting.

34. Human Rights Watch, Invisible Civilians; Boucek, War in Saada, 50.

35. Boucek, War in Saada, 45.

36. Freeman, “The Al-Houthi Insurgency,” 1015.

37. Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 1.

38. Wedeen, Peripheral Visions, 153; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 148.

39. International Crisis Group, Yemen: Defusing the Saada Time Bomb; Hill, Yemen Endures, 180; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 133–135.

40. There was some ambiguity in the Houthis denials of aspirations to bring the imamate back as the imamate was still seen as the most preferable system. Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”

41. International Crisis Group, Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 12; Interview, Houthi supporter, 2014.

42. Kendall, “Iran’s Fingerprints in Yemen,” 2.

43. International Crisis Group, Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 12.

44. Quoted in Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment, 71.

45. Boucek, War in Saada, 46.

46. Kasfir cited in Péclard and Mechoulan, Rebel Governance, 13.

47. Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 9.

48. Knight, “The Military Role,” 7. See Brandt, Tribes and Politics, for a full discussion and explanation of why and how the tribe concept is used in the Yemeni context in spite of its disputed character.

49. Fattah, “A Political History,” 40–41; Knight, “The Military Role,” 5.

50. Brandt, The Irregulars of the Sa’ada War.

51. Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 8.

52. Brandt, The Irregulars of the Sa’ada War; Hill, Yemen Endures, 190; Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 8.

53. Badr al-Din al-Houthi entered into four marriages. Two wifes had tribal background and two had sayyid backgrounds. Fieldwork in the northern parts of Yemen has established that it was common to use marriage as a way of establishing connections between shaykhly lineages and sayyid families. Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 139–141.

54. Phillips, Yemen and the Politics, 93–100; Transfeld, “Political Bargaining,” 4.

55. International Crisis Group, Yemen: Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 15–16.

56. Fattah, “A Political History.”

57. Boucek, War in Saada, 49.

58. Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 146; See also Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”

59. Salmoni et al., Regime and Periphery, 5; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 37.

60. Hill, Yemen Endures, 199; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 137.

61. Soudias and Transfeld Mapping Popular Perceptions, 33.

62. International Crisis Group, Defusing the Saada Time Bomb, 5, 25.

63. Nuβberger, “Military strikes in Yemen,” 4.

64. There were nine working groups in the NDC; the Southern Issue, The Sa’ada Issue, Transitional Justice, State-building, Good Governance, Military/ Security, Special Entities, Rights/Freedoms and Development. 565 representatives from a broad range of Yemeni political parties and civil society organizations, in addition to independents, youths and women participated.

65. Particularly among youths various groups came together to articulate the idea of a ‘civil state’ as an alternative to the ‘old’ Yemeni state. See Alwazir, Yemen’s Enduring Resistance for a focus on the role of youth dominated mobilizing in Yemen in relation to the 2011 uprising.

66. Transfeld, “Political Bargaining,” 7; Yadav, “Sectarianization, Islamist Republicanism,” 196.

67. Schmitz, The Fall of Amran, International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa; Transfeld, “Political Bargaining,” 13.

68. Transfeld, “Political Bargaining,” 13.

69. Alley, Yemen Changes Everything, 76.

70. International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa, 7; Brandt, Tribes and Politics, 342.

71. Alley, “Yemen’s Houthi Takeover”; Interview, Sanaa, October/ November 2014.

72. International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa, 7; Alley, “Yemen’s Houthis Takeover”. Interviews and conversations, Sana’a November/December 2013 and October/November 2014;.

73. Interview, Sanaa, October/November 2014.

74. Schmitz, “The Huthi Ascent.”

75. The Peace and National Partnership Agreement (PNPA) can be found here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/documents/darp/dv/darp20141204_05_/darp20141204_05_en.pdf (Last accessed 19 January 2018).

76. Heinze, “The Triumphant Advance.”

77. Schmitz, Yemen’s Ansar Allah.

78. The campaign was called ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ but later renamed to ‘Operation Restoring Hope’. See the full announcement here: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-continues-back-yemen-model-successful-counterterrorism/story?id=29901029. The coalition consisted of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan and United Arab Emirates.

79. Brandt, Tribes and Politics,341.

80. Kendall, “Iran’s Fingerprints in Yemen,” 9.

81. International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa.

82. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/members-yemens-parliament-hold-meeting-first-time-civil-war-1767026202.

(Last accessed November 25, 2017).

83. Salisbury, Yemen: National Chaos.

84. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence, Ch. 6.

85. The Saudi-led coalition has been criticized for holding the civilian population under Houthi control hostage in the crisis. On 3 April 2017, the then-spokesman for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, Major General Ahmed al-Asiri, told BBC that there should be an interest in ending the war, and that this would not happen if the Houthis continued to have access to food, fuel, money and weapons. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers, 17.

86. Salisbury, Yemen: National Chaos.

87. Ibid.

88. International Crisis Group, Discord in Yemen’s North.

89. Huang, The Wartime Origins, 85; Schmitz, Yemen’s Ansar Allah.

90. International Crisis Group, Discord in Yemen’s North, 2.

91. Kendall, “Iran’s Fingerprints in Yemen.”

92. Kendall, “Iran’s Fingerprints in Yemen.” See Critical Threats, ‘Warning Update: Iran's Hybrid Warfare in Yemen’, for an overview over Iran’s involvement in Yemen: https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/warning-update-irans-hybrid-warfare-in-yemen (Last accessed 20 January 2018).

93. Interview, Sana’a, October/November 2014.

94. Ibid.

95. Schmitz, Yemen’s Ansar Allah; International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa, 11; Interview, Sana’a, October/November 2014.

96. International Crisis Group, From Saada to Sanaa, 10; Kendall, “Iran’s Fingerprints in Yemen.”

97. Rageh et al., Yemen Without a Functioning Central Bank; International Crisis Group, Central Bank Crisis Risks Famine.

98. Salisbury, Yemen: National Chaos, 32.

99. President Hadi’s capital has been Aden since 2015, but he is based in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

100. Salisbury, Yemen: National Chaos.

101. Jerrett, Rise, Fall, and Rise Again.

102. Yadav, “Sectarianization, Islamist Republicanism.”

103. Al-Dawsari, Our Common Enemy.

104. In the Words of the Enemy, Dabiq, 1436 Ramadan, 10 Issue: 67.