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Prelude to Unification: The Yemen Arab Republic, 1962–1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Robert D. Burrowes
Robert D. Burrowes
Affiliation:
Middle East Center, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
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Extract

On 22 May 1990, the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) carried out their old pledge to unite into a single Republic of Yemen. This historic event occurred less than three years after the YAR, seemingly secure and comfortable in its separateness, celebrated its silver jubilee in 1987. This article traces and assesses political development and socioeconomic modernization in the YAR over this more than 25-year period, and hazards some guesses on the implications of these changes for current efforts to implement Yemeni unification.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , November 1991 , pp. 483 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Thanks are due to colleagues at the Middle East Center of the University of Washington, where I am currently a visiting scholar, and to former colleagues in both the Political Science Department at Hunter College (CUNY) and the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University for their support and encouragement. These reflections on North Yemen, the only Arab country not visited by him in his lifetime, are dedicated to the memory of a good friend and mentor, R. Bayly Winder.

1 For an overview of the social and cultural makeup of North Yemen, see Robert, W. Stookey, Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978);Google ScholarStookey, , “Social Structure and Politics in the Yemen Arab Republic,” Middle East Journal, 28, 3 (1974), 248–60. For a collection that addresses these matters,Google Scholar see Pridham, B. R., ed., Economy, Society and Culture in Contemporary Yemen (London: Croom Helm, 1985).Google Scholar For the tribes and tribal system of North Yemen, see Paul, Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).Google Scholar For studies of towns, where tribal and nontribal systems intersect, see Gerholm, T., Market, Mosque and Mafraj: Social Inequality in a Yemeni Town (Stockholm: tockholm University Press, 1977);Google ScholarTom, Stevenson, Social Change in a Yemeni Highlands Town (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985);Google ScholarRichard, Tutwiler, “Tribe. Tribute and Trade: Social Class Formation in Highland Yemen” (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, 1987).Google Scholar See also Chelhod, J., “L'Organisation sociale au Yemen,” L'Ethnographie, vol. 64, pp. 61–86.Google Scholar

2 This study follows the common practice of referring in English to the head of the YAR and the PDRY as the “president,” even though Presidents al-Iryani and al-Hamdi and their PDRY counterpart, Ali Nasir Muhammad, were not so titled officially.

3 For a more detailed account of the YAR down to the fall of 1986, see Robert, D. Burrowes, The Yemen Arab Republic: The Politics of Development, 1962–1986 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987).Google Scholar For other accounts that end earlier in the Salih era, see Robin, Bidwell, The Two Yemens (Essex, Eng.: Longman Group, 1983);Google ScholarJohn, Peterson, Yemen: The Search for a Modern State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982).Google Scholar Most of the major aspects and issues of YAR politics through the 1970s are touched upon in Pridham, B. R., Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background (London: Croom Helm, 1984).Google Scholar

4 Organski, A. F. M. Kenneth, The Stages of Political Development (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), pp. 1–56.Google Scholar

5 The similarities between the world of Yahya and Ahmad and that of King Henry VIII are pointed out in Bidwell, , The Two Yemens, p. 129 and chap. 5 passim.Google Scholar For discussions of the imamate state in the 20th century, see Manfred, Wenner, Modern Yemen, 1918–1966 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967).Google Scholar See also Stookey, , Yemen: The Politics, chap. 7;Google ScholarPeterson, , Yemen: The Search, chap. 2.Google Scholar

6 For relations between the tribes and the Hamid al-Din imamate, see Dresch, , Tribes, chap. 6;Google Scholar and Stookey, , Yemen: The Politics, chaps. 7 and 8.Google Scholar

7 See Ali, Abdel Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World: Intervention in Yemen (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983).Google Scholar

8 For al-Hamdi's efforts at state-building, see Robert, D. Burrowes, “State-Building and Political Construction in the Yemen Arab Republic, 1962–1977,” in Peter, J. Chelkowski and Robert, J. Pranger, eds., Ideology and Power in the Middle East: Studies in Honor of George Lenczowski (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 210–38.Google Scholar

9 See Dresch, , Tribes, chap. 10.Google Scholar

10 For a brief but insightful history of inter-Yemeni relations, see Fred, Halliday, “The Yemens: Conflict and Coexistence,” World Today, 40 (09 10 1984), 355–62.Google Scholar For the details of the PDRY side of the equation, see Fred, Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar See also Gause, F. Gregory, III, “The Idea of Yemeni Unity,” Journal of Arab Affairs, 6 (Spring 1987), 55–87;Google Scholaridem, “Yemeni Unity: Past and Future,” Middle East Journal 42, 1 (Winter 1988), 33–47.Google Scholar

11 For an account of the January 1986 events and their effects on the PDRY's relations with the YAR and other countries, see Robert, D. Burrowes, “Oil Strike and Leadership Struggle in South Yemen: 1986 and Beyond,” Middle East Journal, 43, 3 (Summer 1989), 437–54.Google Scholar See alsoNorman, Cigar, “Soviet– South Yemeni Relations: The Gorbachev Years,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 12, 4 (Summer 1989), 3–38;Google ScholarRobert, D. Burrowes, “The Other Side of the Red Sea and a Little More: The Horn of Africa and the Two Yemens,” Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C., 01 1990.Google Scholar

12 For the terms of the agreement, see Foreign Broadcast information Service (FBIS), Daily Reports–Middle East and Africa, Washington, D.C., 05 5, 1988.Google Scholar

13 The author is inclined to divide Samuel Huntington's notion of “institutionalization” into “state- building” and “political construction,” the latter embracing most aspects of political organization and action. See Samuel, Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968),Google Scholar chap. 1. In addition to Huntington, my thoughts on these matters can be traced back to Lucien, W. Pye, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1966).Google Scholar

14 See Sheila, Carapico, “The Political Economy of Self-Help: Development Cooperatives in the Yemen Arab Republic” (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York, Binghamton, 1984).Google Scholar

15 Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), 11 5, 1982, p. 27.Google Scholar

16 FBIS, 08 27, 1986.Google Scholar

17 For a translation of the 1970 Constitution, see Middle East Journal, 25, 3 (Summer 1971), 385–401.Google Scholar

18 For an early study of Yemeni emigration and the remittance economy, see Jon, C. Swanson, Emigration and Economic Development: The Case of the Yemen Arab Republic (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979).Google Scholar For a more recent study, see Jon, C. Swanson. “Emigrant Remittances and Local Development Cooperatives in the Yemen Arab Republic,” in Pridham, B. R., ed., Economy, Society and Culture in Contemporary Yemen (London: Croom Helm, 1985).Google Scholar

19 For the work of the LDAs, see it Carapico, “The Political Economy”; John, Cohen Mary Hebert, David, B. Lewis, and Jon, C. Swanson, “Development from Below: Local Development Associations in the Yemen Arab Republic,” World Development, 9, 11/12 (1981), 1039–61;Google ScholarRichard, Tutwiler and Sheila, Carapico, Yemen Agriculture and Economic Change: Case Studies of Two Highland Regions (Richmond, Va.: American Institute for Yemeni Studies, University of Richmond, 1981);Google Scholar and Charles, F. Swagman, Development and Change in Highland Yemen (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988).Google Scholar

20 Conversation with the author, San⊃a⊂), August 1976.

21 For some details of the third plan, see MEED, 07 18, 1987, p. 28; 09 19, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

22 Conversation with the author, New York City, November 1985.

23 For a detailed report on economic conditions in the YAR just before the export of oil began, see Peter, Kemp. “North Yemen Special Report: Meeting the Challenge of the Oil Era,” MEED, 11 9, 1987, pp. 16–24.Google Scholar

24 For the worsening economic data in 1988–89, see MEED, 04 21, 1989, p. 30; 10 6, p. 30.Google Scholar

25 The case for reciprocal causation between the institutions and policies of the state, on the one hand, and economic growth and structural transformation, on the other hand, is made in Alan, Richards and John, Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East: State, Class, and Economic Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), especially chaps. 1 and 2.Google Scholar

26 MEED,01 8, 1982, p. 39.Google Scholar

27 FBIS, 09 28, 1982.Google Scholar

28 FBJS, 04 28, 1984.Google Scholar

29 For the text of the 30 November agreement, see FBIS, 12 7, 1989.Google Scholar For summaries and implications of the agreement, see MEED, 12 15, 1989, p.28; 01 19, 1990, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar See alsoFBIS, 12 1,4,5, 13, and 14. For speculations on the eve of agreement,Google Scholar see FBIS, 11 29, 1989; and MEED, 12 1, 1989, p. 27.Google Scholar

30 For the revised terms of unification and for the events immediately before and after unification, see MEED, 05 18. 1990, p. 25; 05 25, p. 28; 06 1, p. 28; 07 8, p. 40.Google Scholar See also articles by Jean Gueyras in Le Monde, May, 23, 1990, p. 1; and June, 13, p. 5. For an assessment of Yemeni unification several weeks after the fact, see Simon, Edge, “Yemen: Special Report,” MEED,07 27, 1990, pp. 9–13.Google Scholar See also Edge's other features in MEED, 01 19, 1990, pp. 4–5; 07 6, pp. 4–5. For lengthy news analyses, see “At Last, They Tie the Knot,” Middle East, 07 1990, pp. 5–11; and “Learning to Live Together,” Middle East, 09 1990, pp. 17–19. There for research purposes, I was witness to this process in the two parts of Yemen between late May and mid-July 1990. Awed and sobered by what I saw and heard, my thoughts often tumed for analogy to the time between the adoption and implementation of the United States Constitution in the late 18th century. The number of things, large and small, momentous and mundane, that have to be rethought and redone is simply staggering, in the private and mixed public–private sectors as well as in the public sector itself.Google Scholar

31 An early translation of the new constitution is available from the Republic of Yemen's Mission to the United Nations and from its embassy in Washington, D.C. (Watergate 600, Suite 860, 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW., Washington, D.C., 20037).