Peninsula Politics andYemen
For students of contemporary Yemen, itshould come as no surprise that the only book-length effort to comeout of Nadav Safran's project other than his own Saudi Arabia: TheCeaseless Quest for Security is a study of Saudi-Yemeni relations&emdash; Gregory Gause's Saudi-Yemeni Relations: DomesticStructures and Foreign Influences. To these students, it shouldbe more apparent than to others that the Yemens have been the Saudis'most enduring security concern over the past sixty years, especiallysince North Yemen had its revolution in 1962 and South Yemen becameindependent in 1967. This concern was rivaled but not exceeded bySaudi concern about either Nasser's Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s orIraq and Iran since 1979, at least not until Iraq invaded Kuwait in1990.
Gause's monograph, published in 1990,concentrates on the period 1962-1982, although relations betweenSaudi Arabia and the Yemens are brought forward with some material onthe intraparty blood bath in Aden in January 1986 and the discoveryof oil in the YAR and the PDRY in 1984 and 1986, respectively. Gauseconceives his subject of study to be the triangular relationshipamong Saudi Arabia and the two Yemens and focuses his attention on acomparison of the Saudi-YAR dyad with the Saudi-PDRY dyad. Heidentified two major Saudi goals in Yemen: (1) to prevent any form ofYemeni unity (presumably to prevent a sizeable non-monarchical Yemenfrom becoming a threat or challenge to Saudi Arabia on the ArabianPeninsula); and (2) to prevent threatening outside powers fromestablishing bases of influence on the Yemeni corner of thePeninusla. He hypothesizes that the Saudis, regarding these goals,have been more successful in influencing the YAR than the PDRYprimarily because of "the different domestic ploitical systems of thetwo Yemens, specifically ... the respective differences in governmentstructure and in state-society relations" (p. 5).
Of greatest explanatory power is the factthat "the North Yemeni government was more decentralized than itsSouth Yemeni counterpart and able to exert less control over itssociety. This fact allowed the Saudis more avenues of access in theNorth Yemeni decision-making process and made Saudi aid a more potenttool for leverage on the North Yemeni state" (p. 8). Only when lookedat in the context of each Yemen's domestic political system do othervariables such as "power differentials, economic relations [asdefined by the dependencia theorists], and ideological affinities... contribute to Saudi Arabia's relatively greater ability toinfluence decision-making in North Yemen" (p. 13).
The thesis that Gause develops with clarityin Chapter 1 seems quite sound. In chapters 2 and 3, he examinesstate and society in each of the Yemens and shows convincingly thatstate structures and state-society relations were as his argumentstipulates they would be. Chapters 4 through 8 deal chronologicallyand in considerable detail with the stages of Saudi policy toward theYemens, focusing on how the Saudis were more successful in playing ondomestic political weaknesses in the case of the YAR than in the caseof the PDRY.
In Chapter 9, Gause draws conclusions bothabout the validity of his hypothesis and about the pattern anddynamics of the triangular relationship between Saudi Arabia and thetwo Yemens. In addition, he does a postscript on Saudi-Yemenirelations from 1982 to 1986. Had he done the latter in greater depth,and had he been able to see to the end of the 1980s, he would havefound much more to support his hypothesis. Under President AliAbdullah Salih, the YAR government became stronger and the balance inthe state-society relations tilted toward the state &emdash; andSaudi Arabia's ability to influence the YAR declined. At the sametime, the party-state in the PDRY weakened noticeably, and there atleast hints that the PDRY was more open than before to Saudiinfluence.
This brings us to Gause's more recent book,Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab GulfStates. Conceived in the wake of the Gulf crisis and war of1990-91, and written over the next two years, this is in most ways avery good introduction to the Arab Gulf states and the challengesfacing them in the last half decade of the twentieth century andbeyond. Focusing on Saudi Arabia and the five small Arab Gulf statesthat with the Saudis comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),Gause shows how great oil wealth in but a few decades had erectedrentier states with their peculiar attributes, eroded the bases of"traditional" politics, and generated questions of representation andparticipation. These relatively new hereditary monarchies, possessedof limited state capacity and great but finite oil wealth, aresubject to demands for distributive justice and something likedemocracy at the same time that they have to pay heed to the demandsof varied Islamic groups, traditional tribal elements, and growingroyal families. Gause suggests that these monarchies are firmly inpower in the mid-1990s because they have met these challenges withconsiderable success, and that they are likely to remain in power ifthey but adapt in an evolutionary way to changing circumstances. Thisis all to the good, it seems, since "it is in the American interestthat domestic change in the Gulf monarchies be gradual andevolutionary" (p. 147).
This short book on a big topic is wellwritten &emdash; clearly, succinctly, and with felicity. However, Ido think the thumbnail sketches of each of the Gulf states are toosketchy to be very useful as introductions to the novice or asreminders to the old hand. The topical organization of the rest ofthe book requires more detailed pictures of the six countries, bothto make learning easier and to allow for critical judgement. I alsothink that the Saudi case gets disproportionately large treatment,although the topical structure makes this difficult tosustain.
Gause may be a bit too sanguine. His thesiswill not anger or worry the ruling families and others of privilegein these monarchies &emdash; nor, for that matter, many in theforeign policy establishment in the United States which has a bigstake in the status quo and stability on the Peninsula. But is he alittle bit guilty of wishful thinking? If not pulling his punches, ishe not drawing back from the implications of his description andanalysis of the rentier state? Might it not be merely a soothingdistinction without a difference to say that "the goal of ...[reform] should not be 'democracy' in and of itself, butstable political evolution toward more participatory politics" (p.198). He is talking, it seems, about more democracy in places whererulers regard democarcy as anathema. Even if he is correct to saythat these monarchies would be threatened only by a "concatenation ofcrises," what grounds are there for assuming that the simultaneousoccurence of two or more political and socioeconomic crises is sorare and unlikely? And if such a concatenation occurred in one of thesix states, is it not likely that one or more of the others would beseriously threatened? The fact that Fred Halliday was way off targetwhen he predicted an imminent Arabia without sultans is no reason forassuming an Arabia without revolutions.
And this brings me back to Yemen. How couldsomeone with considerable knowledge of Yemen write a book on thedomestic and security challenges to the Arab Gulf States withoutmaking Yemen a big and growing part of the political environment ofthese states? There are only eight indexed references to Yemen inthis 200-plus-page book, and none of these speak to relations betweenYemen and these states or to the relevance of Yemen to them in thelast three decades of the twentieth century. In fact two of themrefer in passing to the Saudi's stake in the Yemeni civil war in the1960s. The forty-page chapter on "Representation and Participation"does not raise the significance to these states of the three-year oldexperiment in pluralist, multi-party politics in Yemen thatculminated in a relatively free, open election in late April 1993,this despite the fact that people were talking at the time about thenew role of Yemen as an example or an exporter of democracy. Even theNew York Times, on May 8, 1993, greeted the elections with arhapsodic editorial titled "Something Wonderful had Happened inYemen."
The chapter on "Foreign and Defense Policy,"after spelling out the severe limits on self-defense for the ArabGulf states, individually or through the GCC, focuses on "theregional balancing game, played with Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria"(p. 132). Where is Yemen in this equation? Why no mention of pastinstances &emdash; and possible precedents for the future &emdash; ofthe small Arab Gulf states, fearful of Saudi hegemony on thePeninsula, using Yemen as a counterweight to Saudi pressure? Why nomention of, if only to dismiss as unlikely, a GCC bolstered by Yemenmanpower?
Finally, the summary chapter on "Challenges"does not reiterate the issue of democratization as a domesticchallenge &emdash; and, hence does not mention Yemen as example orexporter of democracy. Nor does Yemen figure in this chapter'ssection on regional security challenges. Gause mentions the expulsionof Yemeni workers by Saudi Arabia during the Gulf crisis, but does sowithout mentioning the rising conflict and hostility between the twomost populous states on the Peninsula. Nor does he note the increasedfocus on Saudi-Yemeni border disputes since that time.
These comments benefit from, but by no meansdepend upon, hindsight gained from the political revelation affordedby the Yemeni Civil War of 1994. The matters that prompt them wereapparent to many, and much talked about, by the end of 1990. Why notby Gause in 1993? The Republic of Yemen is on the Arabian Peninsula,shares borders with two of the six Gulf states, and is anincreasingly important actor in this key subregion of the MiddleEast.
| |