ORIGINS AND ARCHITECTS OF YEMEN'S JOINT MEETING PARTIES

Extract

This article analyzes the origins and significance of cooperation among ideologically diverse forces in Yemen's Joint Meeting Parties. In response to studies that posit a causal relationship between political inclusion and political moderation, I argue that forging those interpersonal and conceptual relationships that initiated and bound together actors from traditionally opposed parties, such as the Yemeni Reform Gathering and the Yemeni Socialist Party, has been as much a result of marginalization as inclusion. Further, cooperation in this case cannot be attributed solely to changing structural relations but has also required changes in thinking by key individuals. They have developed and justified new strategies to account for changes in political practices, often facing down opposition from other forces within their own parties that are intent on maintaining old strategies.