MER Article The Yemeni Elections Up Close Candidate registration for Yemen’s first-ever multi-party elections opened on March 29 in a climate of lively polemics against the president’s party, the General People’s Congress (GPC). The GPC’s permanent committee had approved its electoral program on March 27. That same evening it appropriated a Renaud Detalle • 11 min read
MER Article Elections and Mass Politics in Yemen The Yemeni parliamentary election of April 27, 1993 marks a watershed for the Arabian Peninsula. The multi-party contest for 301 constituency-based seats, and the period of unfettered public debate and discussion that preceded it, represents the advent of organized mass politics in a region where political power has long remained Sheila Carapico • 13 min read
MER Article The Economic Dimension of Yemeni Unity To the outside world, the unification of the two Yemens in 1990 resembled the German experience in miniature. North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic, YAR) was considered a laissez faire market economy, whereas the South (the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, PDRY) was “the communist one.” When, w Sheila Carapico • 17 min read
MER Article Yemeni Workers Come Home With its moderate climate and terraced highlands, Yemen is agriculturally the most productive part of the Arabian Peninsula. Yet people, not crops, have been Yemen’s major export. Migrants from the former North and South Yemen are scattered throughout the world. During the last 20 years, the majorit Thomas Stevenson • 17 min read
MER Article Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy Fred Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987 (Cambridge, 1990). Sheila Carapico • 2 min read
MER Article Women and Public Participation in Yemen Although still old-fashioned when compared with their Levantine or North African sisters, constrained by patriarchal social structures, and limited in their earning capacities, Yemeni women play at least a token role in contemporary political and economic life. They may well be the most “liberated,” though not the most privileged, women Sheila Carapico • 3 min read
MER Article Yemen: Unification and the Gulf War On May 22, 1990, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (the PDRY, or South Yemen) and the Yemen Arab Republic (the YAR, or North Yemen) joined to become the Republic of Yemen. “A Tale of Two Families” reflects the malaise in North Yemen on the eve of unification; the situation in the south, sinc Sheila Carapico • 4 min read
MER Article A Tale of Two Families Virtually every aspect of life in North Yemen has changed dramatically since 1977, including those aspects of Yemeni society which represent continuity with the past: tribalism, rural life and use of qat. [1] The driving force for change has been economic. By 1975, Yemen was caught up in the dramati Cynthia Myntti, Sheila Carapico • 13 min read
MER Article "Eventually There Can Only Be an Arab Solution" Amb. ‘Abdallah al-Ashtal is Yemen’s representative to the United Nations. He served as ambassador for the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen from 1971 until May 1990, when he became the representative of the newly unified Republic of Yemen. In March and December 1990, he chaired the UN Security C James Paul • 7 min read
MER Article Moscow's Crisis Management In January 1986, a major crisis broke out within the leadership of the Yemeni Socialist Party, the ruling party in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. In two weeks of fighting many thousands of people lost their lives, and afterward between 30,000 and 70,000 fled to neighboring North Yemen. Fred Halliday • 16 min read
MER Article The Last Days of 'Ali Nasir The full story of the bloody crisis that tore apart the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in January 1986 has yet to be told, but more information is now becoming available on how President ‘Ali Nasir Muhammad was overthrown and forced to flee the country. Jean Gueyras • 11 min read
MER Article Letters (March/April 1986) Nuclear Dumping in Sudan and Somalia? (Author not identified) • 2 min read
