The Politics of Tribal Perseverance

Abstract

There is a short answer to the question that has been posed to the participants in this roundtable. Tribes have a great deal of currency in modern Yemen because they provide an effective means to govern and protect local society. Tribalism is a deep pool of widely accepted customary practices in Yemen that people draw upon to provide security, manage agricultural resources (Yemen's tribespeople are mostly settled agriculturalists), and resolve local disputes.