Chaos in Yemen:Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism

Chaos in Yemen challenges recent interpretations of Yemen's complex social, political and economic transformations since unification in 1990. By offering a new perspective to the violence afflicting the larger region, it explains why the ‘Abdullah ‘Ali Salih regime has become the principal beneficiary of these conflicts.

Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach, the author offers an alternative understanding of what is creating discord in the Red Sea region by integrating the region's history to an interpretation of current events. In turn, by refusing to solely link Yemen to the "global struggle against Islamists," this work sheds new light on the issues policy-makers are facing in the larger Middle East. As such, this study offers an alternative perspective to Yemen's complex domestic affairs that challenge the over-emphasis on the tribe and sectarianism.

Offering an alternative set of approaches to studying societies facing new forms of state authoritarianism, this timely contribution will be of great relevance to students and scholars of the Middle East and the larger Islamic world, Conflict Resolution, Comparative Politics, and International Relations.

Isa Blumi, Assistant Professor at Georgia State University’s History Department and Middle East Institute, is author of numerous articles on the modern Middle East’s history that focus especially on late imperial rivalries in the Arabian Gulf and Yemen as well as issues of Muslim identity in the context of modernity. A former Fulbright-Hayes, Woodrow Wilson, SSRC, ACLS, and AIYS fellow, among his publications is the book, Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire (2003) and articles appearing in International Journal of Middle East Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.