While the recent departure of President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh has cleared the way for a deeper commitment to the GCC-negotiated transitional agreement, by portraying Saleh himself as the primary barrier to reform we risk overlooking the important tensions within the opposition camp that have opened up over the course of the past year. This paper will consider various nodes of political dissent in Yemen, and explore the shifting relationship between formal and informal opposition groups during the “Change Revolution” and into the transitional period. Particular emphasis will be placed on two tensions within the broad opposition camp: the “parallel revolution,” a semi-organized series of labor stoppages and strikes at public sector firms, designed to press for greater anti-corruption regulation, and the “Life March” and “Dignity March,” two momentous demonstrations in which hundreds of thousands of Yemenis walked from the provincial cities of Taiz and Hodeidah to Sana’a, to register their rejection of elements of the GCC process. In general, the paper will assess the degree to which these intra-oppositional critiques put strain on the durability of the Joint Meeting Parties alliance, the official opposition signatories to the transitional agreement. Will the transitional period signal the ultimate fragmentation of an alliance that was already weak, or will alliance leaders take up the challenge of reintegrating diverse constituencies and engaging them in the process of rebuilding?

The “Arab Spring” as it has been called is both a matter of great international as well as a subject of intense academic investigation. The significance of this event arises from the belief that it is a revolutionary action and therefore a turning point in the region’s history. Yet history has also shown that such great social changes may provoke a reaction and that counter revolutions are indeed possible. Surely, counter-revolutions deserve philosophical engagement; not to consider them is to avoid examining human behaviour. So how precisely must we look at revolution and counter-revolution in a time when the prevailing discourse is the war on terror? I examine the case of Yemen. Here the spontaneous uprising was early declared a failure. Consequently politicians and analysts have made two possible scenarios imaginable. First, a civil war that will shatter a highly fragmented society, creating a space for Al-Qaida to take over assuming that it enters any vacuum which assigns it of course an almost supernatural power. Or second, the implementation of the Gulf Initiative, a political settlement proposed by the ’Friends of Yemen’, led by Saudi Arabia, GCC States, and packed by the USA and the EU States. This Initiative has been portrayed as the only force that can establish a political good even while avoiding chaos and evil. Under the weight of such an extreme choice, the Yemeni people have been compelled to live in fear of a purportedly immoral internal enemy while they are expected to draw strength and hope from a morally responsible external friend. I contend that this embodied claim of ethical responsibility towards the Other is colonised by an imperial counter-revolution. Drawing on work by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida I argue that such a morally responsible action towards the Other is indeed an amoral attempt to deactivate the emancipation of this same Other. It is my contention therefore that the discourse of responsibility has allowed the foreign sovereign to penetrate the local sovereign in a hegemonic fashion, giving birth to a new form of sovereign political subject that awards itself a factual power to make the political decision (decisionism) in the Schmittian sense.

The Huthi movement is growing into a national power with alliances that cross regions and sects of Yemen. What are the implications on Yemen for this growth? And what do the Huthis want? How were they able to forge such alliances? And how do other powers inside Yemen and outside look towards them?

The Southern Movement (harak) started in 2007 to gather people in the former South Yemen angered by the marginal status that Salih regime allocated to its partner in unity. Throughout the past years, the movement has organised into a network of regional movements and as part of its magnificent success, managed already in 2009 to gain among 70 percent of the population support for re-establishment of the Southern state. During the 2011 Yemeni popular uprising the goal of independent state was put on hold in anticipation of a victory of the revolution. Once assured that the revolution will not overcome the movement reaffirmed its position of re-establishing the former Southern state, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. As part of the GCC settlement that transferred power from Salih to his deputy al-Hadi and the forming of a joint government with opposition parties a section of the movement agreed to opt for a 5-year transition period after which a referendum will be held on Southern independence. Splitting the Southern movement on the crucial question of independence tells about the successful tactics of the Salih regime in balancing the power by dividing its rivals and setting them to fight each other. How the movement, and Southern people at large, will be able to rise from this detrimental situation is the topic of this paper. I will ask, how tenable is the goal of national independence from the perspective of Southern political activism? How do significant social divisions such as regional origin, tribal and social class background, gender and age play in divisions among Southerners preventing them to unite on a single national strategy?

Yemen faces the daunting challenge of transitioning away from an economy based upon resource rents to an economy based upon harnessing the power of Yemeni labor inside of Yemen. If this were not difficult enough, the economy also faces a short term crisis related to the unsettled political conflicts raging since 2011. The twin crises are related, as the transition to a domestic economy requires not only political peace, but also state capacity to organization a more diverse economy that harnesses and develops the abilities of domestic labor. The longer the political conflicts rage, the longer the transition to growth in a post-hydrocarbon economy will take. This paper will examine the progress and prospects of the transitional government in addressing the pressing short and medium term crises facing the economy.

This paper analyzes Yemeni women's participation (2011-2012) in the Arab Spring as it manifested in Yemen. I focus on the role that women's participation in Islamic movements played in ousting Saleh from Yemen, as well as the potential that the post-Saleh enviroment creates for Yemeni women to play a wider range of roles in the public realm, especially at the political level. Typically, revolutionary moments have created spaces for women to become involved in political activism to a degree that is subsequently not allowed, after the conclusion or settling of the upheaval. This was true for Iranian women and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Here I look at this phenomenon, and question whether or not Yemeni women, such as Tawakkul Karman and others, will be able make any substantial, prolonged, and sustainable changes in their statuses. Will any interpretation of Islam that allowed for their participation during the last year, be supported in the future? If so, how and why?