Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict by Marieke Brandt (review)

It is true, as Marieke Brandt notes, that we do not know much about the local developments and events in the Sa'da region in northern Yemen, home to the Ansar Allah movement, better known as the Huthis, prior to the 2004 war. It is equally true that the conflict has been misunderstood even after its initiation, often portrayed as a religious conflict that pits "Sunnis" versus "Shi'a" and, by extension, Saudi Arabia and Iran, two countries that purport to represent and protect the rights of each respective group. The reality, as Brandt successfully shows, is that the conflict is a result of both historical structural conditions and political developments since Yemeni independence. More specifically, the structure of society in the rural north, the end of the imamate in 1962, the ensuing hierarchical rearrangement of groups and disempowerment of previously powerful ones, civil wars and the further realignment of various groups, the porous nature of the border with Saudi Arabia and inter-border politics that was disrupted by both Saudi and Yemeni government policies, and finally Yemeni governmental neglect, are the true causes of a conflict which, while not inevitable, had multiple seeds that made it both possible and destructive.

Tribes and Politics in Yemen is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in the Huthi conflict, Saudi foreign policy and its current war in Yemen, field research methods in conflict zones, and conflict dynamics more broadly. It shatters myths through detailed analysis of actors, events, and their interaction through various stages of Yemeni history.

The book is divided into two parts: Part I examines the legacies of the past (1962–2004), and Part II focuses on the dynamics of the Sa'da wars (2004–10). These parts are not unrelated, of course. The first aims to elucidate the context of northern Yemen with its complex local history, while the latter looks at the dynamics of the conflict itself, and the lessons that all parties involved drew in each step of the conflict. While both parts are well-researched and argued, it is perhaps the first that will be of greater interest to readers, because it shows a new history of the long-term effects of various failed policies by the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia, and local actors. This part sets the stage for the author's rejection of the characterization of the conflict in simplified sectarian terms by exploring the numerous decisions that led to the alienation and neglect of many northern groups which, in turn, enabled a weak group to become a formidable fighting force by utilizing such neglect—particularly a perceived threat to Zaydi ideology and identity—as an effective tool of mobilization.

The first chapter is an overview of the northern part of Yemen, where the author conducted her research. Both a societal and topographical analysis of the region sets the stage for a deep understanding of local politics and groups in the region. The main actors described are: tribes and their shaykhs, the sada (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and followers of Zaydi branch of Islam who immigrated to the Sa'da region in late ninth century), qadis (hereditary jurist-administrators of tribal descent), non-tribal people, and urban city dwellers. The relationships between these groups, their relative empowerment and disempowerment, is then effectively laid out as fundamental to an understanding of the Huthi wars as well as the current conflict.

More specifically, in the following chapters Brandt discusses three subjects with enduring effects on the conflict. The first is elite transformations in the Sa'da region triggered by the 1960s civil war and then cemented by the republican regime's politics of patronage, which led to the systematic economic and political empowerment of shaykhs at the expense of other tribesmen and, most importantly for the conflict, the disempowerment of the sada. This, Brandt argues, helped "distort a functioning tribal order by elevating in importance positions of authority and...