Tribes and the Rule of Law in Yemen

Daniel Corstange
Assistant Professor
Department of Government and Politics
University of Maryland, College Park
dcorstange@gvpt.umd.edu
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/corstange/
November 2008
1 Why Tribes?
A cursory inspection of news reports from the last several years suggests
that tribes are important political actors in a number of developing societies,
several of which are venues within which the war on terror is being, or may
soon be, fought. Stories focus on not only the tribal Anbar Awakening
in Iraq, but also tribal councils and militias in the remote regions of both
Afghanistan and Pakistan, two decades of tribal anarchy and clan ghting in
Somalia, tribal violence over Kenyas disputed 2007 elections, the kidnapping
of tourists in the Egyptian desert allegedly perpetrated by tribesmen or
bandits, and an o-and-on insurgency in the mountains of northern Yemen
centered on religious leaders ghting with (and against) the local tribes.
Are tribes bad for development? Is tribal law an impediment to, or a
substitute for, the rule of law? Are tribes barriers to, or promoters of, eco-
nomic and political development? Conventional wisdom suggests that tribes
hinders development by resisting the states eorts to impose uniform state
law over all its territory, impeding attempts to rationalize politics in society,
and obstructing development planning. In eect, such accounts claim that
tribes cause underdevelopment. This paper digresses and makes the inverse

Paper prepared for delivery at the 2008 Annual Conference of the Middle East Studies
Association, Washington, D.C., 2225 November, 2008.
1
claim: underdevelopment causes tribes. Tribes, whatever else they may do
and however else they may be valued by their members, act as second-best
substitutes for an absent or weak state. They supply a modicum of security
and the rule of law via the semi-private provision of tribal law, which serves
as an imperfect substitute for state law, an undersupplied public good.
To evaluate these claims, I utilize original mass attitude survey data col-
lected in Yemen in the spring of 2006 to my knowledge, the rst such
data to be collected there that are nationally-representative in scope. I use
these data to examine the perceptions and attitudes of ordinary Yemeni men
and women. This is a marked change from most existing studies of tribes in
general and Yemen in particular. My focus is on mass attitudes rather than
elite views: I study what the tribesmen (and non-tribesmen!) themselves
say rather than what elites say about or on behalf of them. Further, I look
for systematic and generalizable patterns rather than study a particular vil-
lage or tribe exclusively and exhaustively, making this work a long-overdue
complement to (not substitute for) prior ethnographic studies.
1
These data
suggest that the weaker are state courts, the more positive are evaluations
of tribal law a relationship that is prominent among retribalizing Shafai
Sunnis rather than among traditionally tribal Zaydi Shiites, strengthening
the claim that these ndings reect rule of law rather than identity consider-
ations. Further, and regardless of sect, the more positively people evaluate
tribal law, the less likely they are to view tribes as an impediment to Yemens
development.
2 Tribes, Tribesmen, and Tribal Law
Tribes, it appears, are back, or and this is not the same thing we have
noticed them more over the past decade or so than in the rst half-century
after the second world war. Long unfashionable in the social sciences out-
side of anthropology and largely treated in policymaking circles as a nuisance
factor, both scholars and policymakers are now, sometimes grudgingly, ac-
knowledging the relevance of tribes to their work given the dicult-to-ignore
salience of tribalism in several theaters and potential theaters of the war on
terror. Yet what we know about tribes, at least outside of anthropology,
has not yet caught up with this renewed interest in tribalism: our supply of
1
A sampling of book-length studies include Caton (1990), Dresch (1989), and Weir
(2007). Although tribes have long been the particular bailiwick of anthropologists, the
relationships I study here between tribes, the rule of law, and development puts tribes
and tribalism squarely within the purview of political science and economics as well.
2
understanding has not yet caught up to demand.
Perhaps the most salient, or at least the most publicized, example of
tribalism in contemporary politics is Iraqs Anbar Awakening, in which tens
of thousands of Iraqi tribesmen mostly Sunni and many of whom are
former insurgents have allied with the U.S. military to ght al-Qaida in-
surgents and provide security in their own localities in exchange for salaries
and public works projects.
2
Historical examples of this form of fragile ac-
commodation between foreign forces, weak sitting governments, and tribal
groups are not dicult to nd compare the 19621970 civil war in North
Yemen
3
but these pragmatic alliances continue to gain favor as the ideo-
logical fervor with which U.S. democratizing missions were rst pursued in
the initial stages of the war on terror gives way to more modest goals of ba-
sic stability and security. Rumors of Saudi-hosted peace talks between the
government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, once considered unthinkable,
have led to allegations by hardline al-Qaida supporters that Saudi Arabia
is attempting to transfer the Awakening project from Iraq into Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
4
Pakistani plans to encourage the formation of tribal mili-
tias continue to develop, with the government arming and training tens of
thousands of tribal ghters attempting to evict the Taliban and al-Qaida
from the countrys largely autonomous tribal areas in what the government
and the U.S. military hope will be a replication of the tribal Awakening
movement in Iraq.
5
2
US buys concerned citizens in Iraq, but at what price? Agence-France Presse, 16
October 2007. Alissa J. Rubin and Damien Cave, In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of
Conict, New York Times, 23 December 2007. The Sons of Iraq Keep the Peace,
U.S. News and World Report, 5 February 2008. Greg Bruno, The Role of the Sons of
Iraq in Improving Security, Council on Foreign Relations, 25 April 2008, www.cfr.org.
Iraq tribal clashes leave 15 dead, BBC, 21 October 2008, news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/
-/2/hi/middle_east/7682511.stm. Face to face with the insurgency, BBC, 22 October
2008, news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7684866.stm.
3
In that civil war, Egyptian forces ghting on behalf of North Yemens new and weak
republican government against the ousted royal family regularly used various Yemeni
tribes as auxiliaries. Egyptian and Yemeni government ocials faced analogous concerns
to those in the Anbar Awakening about tribal loyalties switching repeatedly and going to
the highest bidder, leading to the exasperated claim that the tribesmen were republican
by day and royalist by night (Corstange 2007, OBallance 1971).
4
Thought of Taleban deal alarms jihadists, BBC, 23 October 2008, news.bbc.co.
uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7687539.stm. Greg Bruno, The Unthinkable in
Afghanistan, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 October 2008, www.cfr.org. New at-
tempt to seek Taleban peace, BBC, 28 October 2008, /news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/
hi/south_asia/7695256.stm.
5
Suicide bomb hits Pakistan elders, BBC, 10 October 2008, news.bbc.co.uk/go/
pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7663574.stm. Karen DeYoung, Pakistan Will Give Arms to
3
Whereas previously tribes had largely been something to ignore, their
sudden salience in the context of geostrategic calculations in the war on ter-
ror transforms them from eccentric curios into problems with which to be
dealt, or, sometimes more optimistically, potential solutions to those prob-
lems. Yet outside of anthropology, where disciplinary interests sometimes
overlap with the other social sciences and sometimes diverge markedly, there
has been relatively little discussion of why the tribes are there at all. Jour-
nalistic accounts of tribes and tribalism often present either caricatures and
grossly distorted images of backwardness, or else romanticize the purity of
tribal life in miniature Lawrence of Arabia-like fantasias. Although sym-
pathetic and well-researched accounts appear on occasion,
6
the non-trivial
costs of putting together such stories in terms of time, resources, lan-
guage, access, personal privation, and physical danger, not to mention word
counts make them the notable exceptions rather than the norm. Whereas
dismissive pieces gawk smugly at the tribes and their members as little more
than savages,
7
even sympathetic accounts tend to present them as anachro-
nisms or the curious remnants of a pre-modern era, newsworthy because
they continue to exist in spite of the accepted wisdom that they should have
disappeared long ago.
2.1 Institutions, the Rule of Law, and Development
Early proponents of modernization theory attempted to study the grand pro-
cesses of both economic and political development that were occurring
or at least were purported to be occurring in developing countries, many
of which had recently obtained their formal independence after the end of
the second world war. After the initial enthusiasm for modernization theory
waned in light of subsequent theoretical and methodological critiques which
Tribal Militias, Washington Post, 23 October 2008.
6
Compare David Finkels well-regarded 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning three-part story
in the Washington Post on a failed conict-resolution and democracy-promotion program
among the tribes of Yemen: U.S. Ideals Meet Reality in Yemen, 18 December 2005,
A Struggle for Peace in a Place Where Fighting Never Ends, 19 December 2005, In
the End, a Painful Choice; Program Weighs Leaders Edict, Tribes Needs, 20 December
2005. Also see Howard Kurtz, Post Wins 4 Pulitzer Prizes; 2 Go to New Orleans Paper,
Washington Post, 16 April 2006.
7
Tribes and tribalism also serve as colloquial pejoratives, found not only in journalistic
pieces but also popularly-oriented books about politics and world aairs. Huntington
(1996, 207), for example, refers to the clash of civilizations as tribal conict on a global
scale with civilizations the ultimate human tribes, and Barber (1995) subtitles his
provocatively titled Jihad vs. McWorld with how globalism and tribalism are reshaping
the world.
4
brought into question its explanatory power,
8
both economists and polit-
ical scientists have attempted to reformulate research agendas that made
more modest claims and sought to provide partial theories of development,
a major strain of which has focused on the role of government institutions
in the process of economic development.
9
In particular, a growing emphasis
in the institutional literature shifts the focus away from particular regime
types democracy versus autocracy, presidents versus parliaments and
toward institutional quality: the protection for contracting and property
rights, the scope of corruption, strengths of judiciaries, and related con-
cerns, all of which fall under the general heading of the provision of the rule
of law.
10
More precisely, institutions that provide secure environments for
contracting, protect property rights, prevent corrupt activities, provide ba-
sic physical security more broadly, provide coherent law as well as apply
that law in a predictable manner have been shown to encourage produc-
tive activity, increase growth rates, and underpin economic development in
more general terms.
11
Institutions, in other words, provide the rule of law, and variation in
institutional quality explains variation in the provision of the rule of law.
People desire the rule of law for its own sake insofar as it satises demands for
(among many other things) justice, stability, personal security, predictabil-
ity, and certainty, given most reasonable denitions of those ideas. Yet there
is also a derived demand for the rule of law in its capacity to provide an
environment conducive to economic development. Given that demand for
the rule of law is presumably high both because it is desired for its own
sake as well as for what else it brings we might wonder, prima facie, why
supply of the rule of law varies markedly from society to society. Yet the
public goods aspect of the rule of law implies that it will be undersupplied
in most contexts, making low supply the norm rather than the exception.
8
For a sample of some of the early works, compare Deutsch (1961), Huntington (1968),
and Lipset (1960). For a review of subsequent critiques and reformulations, compare
Almond (1987), Hagopian (2000), and Inglehart (1997).
9
See, for example, Acemoglu and Robinson (2006), Boix (2003), Keefer (2004), North
(1981, 1990), Przeworski et al. (2000), and van de Walle (2001).
10
One could argue that early works by scholars such as Huntington (1968) previewed
this later emphasis on institutional quality when they attempted to delineate between type
of government and degree of government.
11
For the impact of the rule of law on development outcomes, compare Acemoglu,
Johnson, and Robinson (2001), Alesina (1998), Collier (1998), Feng (1997), Haggard,
MacIntyre, and Tiede (2008), Keefer (2004), La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and
Vishny (1999), Mauro (1995), Rodrik (1999), Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1998), Shleifer and
Vishny (1993), and Weingast (1997).
5
The rule of law, in the abstract, maps closely onto the concept of a true
public good, with the well-worn principle of justice for all indicating that
everyone may access benet from it.
12
In principle, the rule of law is both
non-rival and non-excludable. By non-rival, I mean that one individuals
use of the rule of law does not make it less available to others it is not
a good whose consumption reduces quantity, i.e., it is not subject to being
used up. By non-excludable, I mean that it is not feasible (or possible)
to prevent individuals from beneting from the rule of law, when they do
not contribute to its provision, e.g., via an expenditure of time, eort, or
resources. To the extent that the rule of law is indeed a true public good,
however, this implies that it is subject to the litany of public goods problems
that mean it is undersupplied relative to demand, perhaps marginally so and
perhaps dramatically so.
When considering the rule of law, it is usually the case that we elide
this concept with state institutions and the states court system. This is
unsurprising given that we commonly expect that it is the state that provides
the rule of law, at least in an approximate form. The idealized state may
in fact do so via its monitoring and enforcement mechanisms which,
if viewed by the states citizens as legitimate, increase their capacity and
reduce the cost of using them to provide disincentives for people to engage
in opportunistic behavior by breaking laws and to punish those who do.
There are numerous conceivable motives for the state to provide the rule of
law, but whatever the motive the key point here is that state institutions
play a critical role in the provision of this particular public good and are
commonly justied on those grounds.
13
In application, of course, achieving the rule of law that is both non-rival
and non-excludable is only approximated even by the most well-functioning
of state institutions. It is, for example, subject to crowding, as is evident
12
See Hardin (1982), Marwell and Oliver (1993), and Olson (1965).
13
Several interpretations for why the state provides the rule of law are available. For
example, one version based on accountability and a vote-market mechanism holds that
elected ocials wishing to retain oce follow the wishes of voters, who demand the rule of
law. Another version based on encompassing interest holds that the state as a corporate
entity wishes to maximize tax revenue and does so by encouraging taxable economic
activity by providing security and secure contracting. Yet another version based on the
concept of club goods or selective incentives holds that key constituents or power-holders
themselves benet far more from the provision of the rule of law than do the populace in
general, and consequently the provision of the rule of law is intended to satisfy these key
constituents, with a positive externality that enables the rest of the population to utilize
the good as well. Whether some, any, or all of these narratives are in fact applicable in a
given society is beside the point I am attempting to make here.
6
by the considerable backlog of cases on even the most well-functioning of
court systems dockets and the length of time required to receive a hearing
in court here, the rule of law is only partially non-rival in the sense that
use of limited court resources by one individual delays their use by another
individual. Further, the rule of law is only imperfectly non-excludable, as
it is well-established that wealthy individuals capable of hiring expensive
attorneys are better able to win their court cases than are poor individu-
als being represented by understaed and underresourced public defenders
oces in this situation, the rule of law may indeed apply to all, but in
practice it applies to some more than others. In other words, even in wealthy
countries such as the United States where we commonly view state institu-
tions and the court system as functioning reasonably well particularly in
comparison to what obtains in many developing countries the resource-
constrained state nonetheless undersupplies the rule of law in practice as
compared to principle.
14
Yet this begs an important question: although well-functioning state in-
stitutions may be able to provide an approximation of the idealized version
of the rule of law, what happens in poor societies where state institutions
cannot reasonably be described as well-functioning? In some respects, this
remains the proverbial white elephant in the room for most economists and
political scientists who study institutions. The modal answer appears to
be that such societies rely on informal institutions in place of formal in-
stitutions, or else that informal institutions strongly inuence how formal
institutions function in practice rather than as written. Yet informal insti-
tutions, conceptually, is usually treated as a residual category that appears
to include a grab-bag of the leftovers: culture, customs and traditions, kin-
ship networks, customary law, patron-client relationships, and whatever else
does not t with contemporary conceptions of institutions as dened in con-
stitutions and legal codes. Further, compared to the lengthy treatises and
well-dened research agendas that focus on formal institutions, informal ones
at best receive only passing mention, and more often receive no mention at
all.
15
To provide a sense of proportion, a recent, comprehensive review of
14
Further examples and evidence of undersupply are not dicult to provide. Low judi-
cial salaries are only partially oset by the social prestige attached to the oces, reducing
the talent pool of individuals willing to take those positions and lowering the overall av-
erage quality of sitting judges. Similarly, salaries for public defendents are dramatically
lower than what a similarly credentialed lawyer could earn in private practice, which again
is only partially oset by ideological or altruistic benets public defenders earn, again im-
plying a reduction of the talent pool and the lowering of the overall average quality of
public defenders.
15
Although North (1981, 1990), for example, acknowledges informal institutions in his
7
scholarship on the rule of law and economic development managed to ll
one of 29 pages on informal institutions comprising a mere eight citations
out of 171 total (i.e., less than ve percent of total citations).
16
In many countries, formal state institutions such as the court system
are weak or nonexistent sometimes due to severe resource constraints
and sometimes by design and cannot or will not provide the rule of
law even in approximate form. Weak and resource-constrained court sys-
tems are common in emerging democracies where governments must choose
between spending scarce nancial resources on development projects or on
institution-building, and development projects, whose benets are more tan-
gible and immediate, not to mention at least partially targetable to support-
ers, are potentially more politically attractive to politicians with short time
horizons. Similarly underdeveloped court systems are also common in coun-
tries ruled by autocratic governments, where barriers to the rule of law may
in fact be partially purposive as elites seeks to maintain considerable discre-
tionary power for themselves to provide both the rule of law and exemptions
to it in a targeted fashion to supporters. Yet this does not mean that there
is no demand for the rule of law among the populations of such countries,
but rather only that there is no credible state supplier of it.
Consequently, especially in the absence of a credible supply of the rule of
law by formal state institutions such as the courts, people look for alterna-
tive providers to meet demand, at which point informal institutions become
particularly salient in both practical and analytical terms by providing im-
perfect, second-best substitutes to formal state institutions by providing an
approximation of an approximation of the rule of law.
17
2.2 Tribal Law as Second-Best Rule of Law
Conceptually, tribal law becomes particularly salient in the context of infor-
mal institutions providing some semblance of the rule of law in the absence
seminal studies of institutional development, he rarely does more than cite them as what-
ever remains when formal institutions have already been considered. Works by Greif
(1994, 2006) provide a rare and welcome alternative in which informal institutions are
central rather than peripheral concerns.
16
See Haggard et al. (2008): of the eight published works cited, three are by Greif and
colleagues (see fn. 15). Although the authors make a point of acknowledging the relevance
of informal institutions, they also acknowledge that we know comparatively little about
them.
17
Although this is presumably familiar ground for many anthropologists and those who
make special study of developing societies, it is comparatively less researched in economics
and political science. For examples, see Bates (1983, 2001), Bates et al. (2002), Dixit
(2004), Fearon and Laitin (1996), and Haggard et al. (2008).
8
of well-functioning state institutions. Although some studies of customary
tribal law focus on the content of the law and practices,
18
my focus here is
rather on tribal law as a means to achieve the rule of law what it pro-
vides rather than the details of the legal corpus. In this view, utilization
of tribal law becomes something other than a stubborn refusal to embrace
the modern world, as is often alleged by political detractors of the tribes
and by puzzled academics, and is comprehensible as goal-directed behavior
by individuals attempting to improve their lives under daunting constraints.
Tribal law, in other words, is not utilized by tribesmen in order to weaken
the central state or to remain independent of it, but rather persists because
state institutions are weak.
2.2.1 Are Tribesmen Irrational?
Standard views of tribesmen are rarely complementary. In the Yemeni con-
text and presumably in most societies in which tribalism continues to
hold salience the tribesmen are often stylized as uneducated, backwards,
ignorant, uncultured, tradition-bound, irrational, uncivilized, and violent.
These views are often strongest among city-dwellers, the educated elite, and
those who strongly oppose the current governing regime in Yemen, which is
associated with tribalism and tribal traditions. Unattering jokes abound
about the ignorance and stupidity of tribesmen, and the epithet tribal is
not infrequently used as a synonym for backwards.
19
The tribesmen are commonly depicted as violent and irrational, clinging
to outmoded tribal traditions that are clearly self-destructive and yet persist
due to ignorance (patronizingly) and sheer stubbornness (vindictively). In
contemporary discourse, the tribes factor as sources of instability and law-
lessness, as well as anarchy and barbarism, with two prominent examples of
this alleged irrational destructiveness coming in the form of the continued
prominence of tribal wars and feuds that lead to revenge killings
.
.
.
. .
20
Figure 1, which depicts two editorial cartoons from a Yemeni newspaper,
18
See, e.g., Posner (1980) and Stewart (1987), as well as Alimi (nd), bin Yahya bin
Ali Sadami (1993), and bin Ali Sayyad (1993) in the Yemeni context.
19
One mean-spirited joke holds that tribesmen do not know what soap is, and conse-
quently when being introduced to soap cakes attempt to them. Another holds that, with
the introduction of the republic (jamhuriyya) in the 1960s, tribesmen came down to the
capital from the mountains to see this beautiful new jamhuriyya (a female noun, meaning
the tribesmen thought the republic was a woman). Yet another makes a play on words
between doctor (duktur) and constitution (dustur) to suggest that tribesmen come
to the city upon hearing that there is a new dustur that will solve all of their problems
and health ailments. The list goes on.
20
On revenge killings in Yemen, see Hadrani et al. (2005) and SABA (2004), which are
9
illustrates these themes by identifying revenge killings with rough-looking,
violent, unthinking tribesmen, programmed to act irrationally in pursuit of
vengeance and destroying themselves in the process.
Although tribal wars and revenge killings, prima facie, appear self-
destructive and the product of people irrationally clinging to historical grie-
vances and motivated by passions and emotions, research on conict regu-
lation and conict resolution under conditions of anarchy or semi-anarchy
suggest otherwise.
21
Under such conditions, when there is no third-party
monitor or enforcer of law a position usually lled by the state in con-
temporary societies parties to conict must provide their own means to
regulate relations and provide security. The destructiveness of tribal wars
as well as running feuds and vendettas should not be ignored, but neither
should it be exaggerated. Although the salience of such events makes them
newsworthy and Yemeni newspapers frequently report the start of yet
another tribal war or yet another victim of a revenge killing judging
their overall destructiveness by the number of events cited in the media or
by word-of-mouth obscures the far larger number of tribal wars that do not
occur. Put another way, there is a far greater prevalence of tribal peace
than tribal war, and examining only instances of tribal war hopelessly bi-
ases whatever we may wish to infer about inter-tribal relations and tribal
law.
22
Tribal conicts and the use of tribal law as a conict regulation and
resolution mechanism do not occur in a vacuum. They occur, rather, in
the context of pervasive weakness on the part of Yemeni state institutions.
Yemen is a prototypically weak state characterized by poverty, underdevel-
opment, and poorly functioning state institutions. It is among the poorest
countries on earth and in recent years has experienced at best minuscule
economic growth in per capita terms, with roughly half the population liv-
ing below the poverty line and one-third unemployed. Average educational
attainment is low, and illiteracy rates hover around 50 percent of the pop-
ulation, growing markedly worse in the rural areas where 75 percent of the
specialized volumes on the subject, the Yemeni tribal law exegeses in fn. 18, as well as
more general accounts in Abu Ghanim (1985, 1990) and Zahiri (1996, 2004).
21
Compare Bates (1983, 2001), Bates et al. (2002), Fearon and Laitin (1996), Hardin
(1995), and Olson (1993, 2000).
22
An analogous point can be made about deterrence theory in international relations:
for years, a great many scholars argued that deterrence did not work in practice, a claim
based almost entirely on cases where deterrence schemes did in fact break down. Yet when
these cases of failure are compared to the far greater number of potential conicts that did
not occur, the concept of deterrence receives exceptionally strong empirical conrmation.
See Achen and Snidal (1989) for details.
10
Figure 1:
.
.
.
. Vengeance
11
population continues to reside. Basic infrastructure and services in the form
of education, health, roads, electricity, and water are provided at only a
very low and variable level outside of the main cities, and even in the major
cities cannot be taken for granted. On this note, Figure 2, depicting an-
other Yemeni editorial cartoon (translation mine), illustrates the bemused
frustration of many Yemenis by highlighting the states chronic undersupply
of basic services, especially in the rural areas.
Figure 2: Minimal Infrastructure and Services
In addition to achieving underwhelming development outcomes, Yemen
also suers from very low institutional capacity, with highly personalized
parties and bureaucracies, endemic corruption, weak courts and rule of law,
and a state whose writ does not extend far into the countryside and which
lacks a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The persistence of seem-
ingly anachronistic tribal wars, the kidnapping of tourists, an on-again, o-
again insurgency simmering in the northern province of Saada, and the open
and largely unpoliced countryside that allegedly provides a safe haven for
militant groups all combine to place Yemen consistently near the top of the
12
Failed States Index, one composite measure to describe state capacity and
basic governance outcomes.
23
Many of these problems appear to be tribal in
origin: the tribes are the ones engaging in tribal wars, kidnapping tourists
for ransom (usually development projects for their regions), ghting in the
Saada war, and providing the safe havens for militants. These contempo-
rary problems, and analogous ones that preceded them throughout Yemeni
history, have led to the frequently-made claim that the tribesmen are the
cause rather than the actors in the events, which is not precisely the same
thing.
24
That the tribesmen involved are culpable for their actions is not
debatable the individuals shooting their guns are ultimately responsible
for their own actions but the more important point I wish to make is that
the tribesmen involved are responding to their constraints and incentives,
perhaps the largest of which is the largely absent state and its low capacity
to provide the rule of law in the areas where these tribally-based problems
occur most frequently.
2.2.2 What Tribal Law Provides
The common claim throughout Yemeni history, and particularly since the
advent of the republican era as elites have attempted to break with the much-
maligned backwards past of the imamate in the north and colonial/sultanic
rule in the south, has been that the tribes have resisted and retarded the
extension of the state into their territories. These tribes frequently de-
scribed as ercely independent or something similar to denote their aver-
sion to a civilizing state thereby prevent the development of viable state
institutions, a situation which they allegedly prefer because it allows them
to administer their own aairs. This basic narrative is wrong. The received
wisdom holds that the state is weak because the tribes resist it, whereas I
make the inverse claim here: the tribes persist because the state is weak,
a view backed by a number of prominent tribal shaykhs and political ac-
tivists, as well as numerous Yemeni academics.
25
This claim reverses the
23
See the Fund for Peace, www.fundforpeace.org/.
24
See, for example, Abd al-Salam (1988) and Bakr (1995), two leftist writers opposed to
tribalism and what they see as the tribal regime of the northern (and later unity) republic.
See also the debates in Saqqaf (2002a, 2002b).
25
Corroborating evidence comes in part from elite interviews with tribal shaykhs and
political party leaders conducted in Yemen in 2005/6. For additional corroborating views
from members of the most prominent shaykhly families in Yemen those that would
presumably be best positioned to benet the most from tribal independence from the
state see Saqqaf (2002b) and Yahya (2004). For academic treatments, see Abdali
(2007), Abu Ghanim (1985, 1990), Sharjabi (1986, 1990), and Zahiri (1996,2004).
13
causal arrow of the received wisdom. It states that tribes continue to exist
as relevant social and political entities in part because they perform func-
tions that contemporary observers usually associate with a state and its
institutions. As state institutions become increasingly weak, whether due
to mismanagement or to exogenous shocks, tribes become more salient, to
the point that even previously non-tribal or weakly-tribal segments of the
population begin to retribalize. Hence, the continued salience of tribalism,
and the recourse to tribal law, indicates not an attempt to weaken the state,
but an attempt to survive given the preexisting weakness of that state.
Given the constraints Yemenis face, tribal law is, I suggest, not an imped-
iment to the rule of law, but rather an imperfect substitute for it: a second-
best alternative when an idealized provision of state-based law is absent or
weak. It represents the use of an informal institution to achieve desired
outcomes security, predictability, and development the achievement of
which we normally attribute to formal state institutions. It is imperfect in
the sense that providing the rule of law via customary tribal law is costly to
the participants as well as less ecient and less capable in achieving those
outcomes than an well-functioning set of state institutions would be, yet
the second-best alternatives provided by tribal law are clearly preferable to
nothing.
In this context, customary tribal law, as an informal institution, takes
on particular salience. In its capacity as an alternative to weak or absent
state institutions, support for its use becomes comprehensible as something
other than a supposed irrational clinging to tradition by the ignorant or
uncivilized and an impediment to development and the spread of state writ,
as is sometimes alleged. Tribal law, whatever else it does and for whatever
other reasons people view it positively, also serves as an imperfect substitute
for nonfunctioning state institutions. It represents the semi-private provision
of the rule of law: plaintis may pay the shaykhs and judges to consider
cases and, rather than rely on a third-party enforcer, the tribes themselves
bear the cost of enforcing the rulings. Hence, it is imperfect in the sense
that tribal law is certainly rival and excludable in a way that an idealized
vision of the rule of law is not, and is also inecient in the sense that it
is dicult to take advantage of economies of scale and division of labor. It
may provide some security and predictability, but only imperfectly and in
a costly fashion. Yet despite its limitations, tribal law does in fact provide
these desired outcomes at least at a basic level. Tribal law, in other words, is
a second-best alternative to a well-functioning state in providing the rule of
law. It is costly, inecient, and only partially capable of meeting demand,
but it is considerably better than nothing.
14
If the above is true, we should expect peoples attitudes about tribal
law, and the tribes in general, to vary for systematic reasons. Views on
tribal law should vary according to perceptions of state capacity. If tribal
law is a substitute for state-provided rule of law, people should be more
favorably inclined toward tribal law when they perceive the state to be
failing in its duties and see tribal law as taking up the slack. Whether
people view the tribes as playing a positive role in, or acting as barriers to,
development in the country should, in turn, vary according to perceptions of
tribal law. If peoples attitudes toward tribes and tribalism reects the ideas
developed above, people should be most favorably inclined to a role for tribes
in development precisely when they see tribal law providing something they
want and which is necessary for development: a basic degree of security,
stability, and certainty.
3 Data and Measures
3.1 Empirical Focus
The empirical investigation I conduct here is based primarily on mass atti-
tude public opinion data rather than on government data, whether in the
form of the census or on cross-sectional infrastructure and service provision
data collected by the various government ministries. In part this empirical
strategy is a recognition of data limitations insofar as government statistics
are not necessarily reliable, either as incidental casualties to resource scarcity
that prevent data from being collected rigorously, or systematically due to
data sensitivity and manipulation of gures.
26
Yet beyond practical con-
straints, this also reects the research focus in substantive terms: individual
perceptions of and attitudes toward tribes, tribal law, and development. In
particular, to examine who supports and who opposes the use of tribal law
and why we must examine individuals as the units of analysis rather
than tribes as aggregates or tribal law as elites conceive of it.
26
Several foreign diplomatic interviewees in the fall of 2005 urged me to ask my survey
respondents if they had ever encountered a government ocial asking questions for a
census, while several activists alleged that government data, even on topics as mundane
as tomato production, were often subject to manipulation for political purposes. As
a relevant example of this problem, Yemens central statistical bureau reports Interior
Ministry tabulations of the number of tribal wars (vaguely dened) on a yearly basis
beginning in the mid-1990s. These gures tend to hover in the 50150 per year range until,
not coincidentally, 2001, when they plunge into the single digits, and shortly thereafter
are not reported in annual statistical abstracts.
15
This, in turn, means focusing on mass attitudes rather than elite percep-
tions or, in the specic context of Yemen, tribesmen rather than shaykhs.
This focus is a complement to studies of elites rather than a substitute for
them. It is also a neglected and missing piece of the overall puzzle, which for
reasons of both practicality and research interests have tended to focus on
shaykhs, shaykhly families, and political elites outside of the tribal system.
In addition to shifting the focus to tribesmen, it also entails a comparison of
tribesmen to non-tribesmen or, more generally, people for whom tribes
and tribal identities are of varying degrees of importance so that we have
some grounds on which to gauge the importance of tribalism itself.
This is not to imply that all or even most prior studies ignored the tribes-
men or focused solely on elites. On the contrary, many ethnographic studies
mixed both mass and elite analysis, studying both tribesmen and shaykhs.
Although this research methodology has numerous strengths internal va-
lidity in the inclusive sense of the term as well as measurement validity
it is dicult to generalize beyond the subjects of the ethnography if for
no other reason than explicit comparisons are not made or available within
them. Thus, patterns found in one tribe or one village may or may not be
representative of a more generalizable pattern, but we are in no position
to judge given the method employed. Further, we are in no real position
to determine the eects of tribalism or tribal membership if we do not ex-
plicitly examine non-tribesmen as well. In other words, we have diculties
with generalization and making rigorous ceteris paribus inferences given the
lack of comparisons based on key variables as well as lack of measures of
uncertainty. Again, this makes analysis of survey data complementary to
ethnographic studies rather than a substitute: surveys and ethnographies
are each far better at answering dierent aspects of our research questions.
Yet again, the wealth of ethnographic data compared to the paucity of survey
data implies that the value-added of survey analysis is particularly striking
at this juncture.
The survey itself comprises 1,440 interviews with respondents drawn
from a random sample stratied geographically across Yemen and includ-
ing individuals from approximately half of the countrys provinces.
27
After a
27
The provinces in the sample were chosen approximately randomly with their probabil-
ity of inclusion in the sample a product of their population weights in the country, subject
to the constraints that a) at least one province from the former southern republic was
included, and b) the province of Saada was excluded due to security constraints imposed
by the governments response to the Houthi insurgency. Although the latter is unfortu-
nate and detracts somewhat from the representativeness of the overall survey itself, this
diculty is mitigated somewhat by the fact that a) the population of Saada province is
16
100-person pretest of the questionnaire, the survey was administered face-to-
face with respondents by trained interviewers from the Yemen Polling Cen-
ter.
28
This survey, to my knowledge, is the rst such nationally-representative
mass attitude survey conducted in the country, certainly for the purposes of
scholarly research.
3.2 Summary Statistics
3.2.1 Dependent Variables
Here, I present the basic summary statistics related to the two survey ques-
tions I use as indicators of the two key dependent variables. The rst
outcome I study is respondents assessments of tribal law as a useful or
problematic way to resolve conicts in Yemeni society, whereas the subse-
quent outcome I study is respondents assessments of the role, positive or
negative, that tribes play in Yemens development process. I discuss the
questions below and then provide summary statistics in graphical form of
responses to those questions. In doing so, I present comparison of responses
between Zaydi Shia and Shafai Sunni respondents given that tribalism and
the tribal system has long been particularly strongly associated with the
former community. Community median responses are marked with red Ms.
Assessments of tribal law. To examine Yemenis perceptions of and at-
titudes toward tribal law and its impact on the rule of law in Yemeni society
(Tribal Law), I asked respondents the following forced-choice question:
Some people say that using tribal law to resolve conicts is good
for Yemeni society, while others say that the tribal system is
hindering the spread of the rule of law. Which of these two
statements do you agree with most?
29
small to begin with and its inclusion in the survey sample would have introduced only
a relatively small number of Yemenis whose weight in the analyses would be unlikely to
dramatically change ndings, and b), several other provinces with strong tribal tradi-
tions are included in the sample. The provinces that were ultimately sampled are: Aden
and Hadramawt (both from the former southern republic), Taiz, Ibb, Hajjah, Hudayda,
Dhamar, Amran, Marib, and Sanaa city.
28
On the Yemen Polling Center, see http://yemenpolling.org/ (for an English version,
see http://yemenpolling.org/english/).
29
The Arabic wording of the question is:
.
.

_
.
.
- _
.

_
.

..
.
.
.
.-

. _
.

.
..

. _.
:
..
.

_
.
.

.
.

,.

.
.
.
_.

.

..

:
.

.
.

.
.

_
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.

_
.
.
.
....

:


_.
.
.
_.

..
.
. ,.

.

. _
.
..
.

.
.

17
Interviewers then read the following two statements to respondents:
Using tribal law to resolve conicts is good for Yemeni so-
ciety.
The use of tribal law is hindering the spread of the rule of
law in the country.
30
Respondents stated, rst, which of the two statements they agreed with
more (an unread but accepted answer was that they agreed with neither
statement), and second, if they agreed strongly with that statement, or just
somewhat. The forced-choice format (rather than a standard agree-disagree
format) was chosen in part to encourage respondents to think harder about
the question rather than provide top-of-the-head answers, and in part to
avoid acquiescence bias, in which less educated individuals have been shown
to agree to statements systematically regardless of their content. I report
the distribution of responses graphically in the top panel of Figure 3.
Assessments of the role of tribes in development. To examine Yeme-
nis perceptions of and attitudes toward the role of tribes in Yemens de-
velopment (Tribes Dev.), I asked respondents an additional forced-choice
question similarly structured to the one on tribal law:
Some people say that tribes and the tribal system play a positive
role in Yemens economic and political development, while others
disagree and say that the tribes are holding Yemen back. Which
of these two statements do you agree with most?
31
Interviewers then read the following two statements to respondents:
The tribes play a positive role in the development of the
country.
30
The Arabic wording for the two statements is:
_
.

..
.
.
.
.-

. _
.

.
..

. _.
:
..
.

_
.
.

.
.

,. , .

-
.
..
_
.

..
.
.
.
.-

. _
.

..
.
. _< .
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
..
.
_
.
.

.
.

,. , .

-
.
..
31
The Arabic wording of the question is:

_..
.
_
.

.
...
.
.
.
. _
.
. ..
.
. .
.
. _
.

..
.
.

..

.
.
.

..
.
.
.
..
.
.

.
.

.
_.

.

..

.
.
: _
.
.

-
.
. ..
.
.

.
. _
.
.

_
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.

_
.
.
.
....

:


_.
.
_<.

.
.
.

_
.
.
- _
.

18
The tribes are holding back the development of the coun-
try.
32
As before, respondents stated rst which of the two statements they agreed
with more (accepting neither answers when given), and second, whether
they agree strongly or just somewhat. I report the distribution of responses
graphically in the bottom panel of Figure 3.
Figure 3 reveals two broad points of interest. First, and consistent with
prior studies of tribalism in Yemen, Zaydi Shia respondents are, on aver-
age, more supportive of the use of tribal law and sympathetic to the role of
tribes in development than are their Shafai Sunni counterparts. For both
questions, the Zaydi Shia median response is somewhat supportive of both,
whereas the Shafai Sunni median response is somewhat opposed to both.
Yet the average responses are not the whole story, which is the second point.
There is signicant variation in the answers given within both communities:
sizable numbers of Zaydis and Shafais are against tribal law and the role
of the tribes in development, just as there are sizable numbers who are in
favor of tribal law and a role for the tribes in development. This variation
is an interesting substantive nding in its own right insofar as it belies the
oversimplied stories sometimes forwarded that Zaydis are all tribal and
Shafais are all modern and civilized narratives sometimes put forward
in journalistic pieces and sometimes put forward to advance a particular
political or policy position. From a methodological standpoint, the consid-
erable variation found in answers to these questions provides rich grounds
to assess causes of the variation in these answers. It is not the case that
most people are for (or against) tribal law and the tribes with just a few
cranks and outliers, but rather than there is considerable gradation of views
available to analyze.
3.2.2 Explanatory Variables
Ultimately, I am attempting to explain two outcomes. First, I am attempt-
ing to account for variation in attitudes toward the use of tribal law: who is
particularly in favor, who is particularly opposed, and why? Second, I am
attempting to explain assessments of the role of tribes in development: who
sees their role as mostly positive, who see it as mostly negative, and why?
32
The Arabic wording for the two statements is:
...

_
.

.
...
.
.
.
. _
.
. ..
.
. .
.
. _
.

..
.
.

..

.
.

.
.

..
.
.
.
..
.
.

.
.
...

_
.

.
...
.
.
.
. _
.
. ..
.
. .
.
. _
.

..
.
.

.. .

..
.
.
.
..
.
.

.
.
19
Zaydi Shia Shafai Sunni
Tribal Law

W
i
t
h
i
n

C
o
m
m
u
n
i
t
y

P
r
o
p
o
r
t
i
o
n
0
.
0
0
.
1
0
.
2
0
.
3
0
.
4
Very
Bad
Somewhat
Bad
Neither
Somewhat
Good
Very
Good
M M
Zaydi Shia Shafai Sunni
Tribes and Development

W
i
t
h
i
n

C
o
m
m
u
n
i
t
y

P
r
o
p
o
r
t
i
o
n
0
.
0
0
.
1
0
.
2
0
.
3
0
.
4
Very
Negative
Somewhat
Negative
Neither
Somewhat
Positive
Very
Positive
M M
Figure 3: Dependent Variables Summary Statistics
20
To explain attitudes toward tribal law, I use assessments of the state court
system as the principle explanatory variable. To explain assessments of the
role of tribes in development, I use attitudes toward tribal law, previously
an outcome variable, as the principle explanator.
Condence in the state courts. To examine Yemenis perceptions of
the trustworthiness of Yemens state and non-state institutions, I asked them
a series of questions about their condence in various entities such as the
parliament, political parties, and the police. One of the items that respon-
dents considered was on the courts and legal system (Courts), for which
they were asked the following question and responded on a ve-point scale:
I am going to name a number of public and civic institutions.
For each one, could you tell me how much condence you have
in it: a great deal of condence, quite a lot of condence, a little,
too little, or none at all? . . . The courts and legal system?
33
There is considerable variation in the answers to this question, with 29
percent of the respondents saying they have no condence in the courts, 19
percent saying they have very little condence, 24 percent responding that
they have little, 22 percent saying they have much, and 7 percent saying they
have very much condence. In other words, there is considerable variation
on this key explanatory variable, which can be used to help explain the
considerable variation in attitudes toward the use of tribal law.
Rule of law in the country and the province. Whereas condence in
the state courts is the principle explanatory variable used to explain varia-
tion in attitudes toward the use of tribal law, I make the additional claim
that the explanatory power of perceptions of the courts should vary accord-
ing to perceptions of the overall level of the rule of law i.e., the court
eect is conditional on the rule of law eect. I consequently asked respon-
dents to rate the degree of the rule of law both in the country overall and
33
The Arabic wording of the question is:
.
...
.
. _.-. : ..

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

. _
.
. .. .

. _
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
.
...
.
..
.
.

. ..

.
.
.
.
..

.
.
.
The ve response options are none ..
.
.
..
.
.

. ..

.
.
.
., very little .-

.
..
.
.
.

.,
little
.
..
.
.
.

., much
.
.

.
.
.

., and very much .-

.
.

.
.
.

..
21
in their own provinces in particular (Country ROL and Province ROL).
34
As before, there is considerable variation in the responses give, with 18 (24)
percent saying that the rule of law is not strong at all, 38 (37) percent saying
that it is not very strong, 36 (32) percent saying it is somewhat strong, and
8 (8) percent saying that it is very strong in the country (province). For
my purposes here, this variation is important, as condence in the courts
should have varying levels of explanatory power when respondents perceive
greater or lesser degrees of the rule of law which could in principle be
attributable to the state courts or to tribal law.
3.2.3 Control Variables
In addition to these key explanatory variables, I include in the statistical
models several control variables. These include a self-assessed measure of po-
litical understanding (Understand),
35
a measure of educational obtainment
(Education),
36
hours per day the respondents home is without electricity
as a measure of basic material well-being (Electricity),
37
whether or not the
respondent considers him/herself a member of tribe (Tribesman),
38
the re-
spondents sex (Female), whether the respondent lives in an urban or rural
34
The wording for the two questions is, how would you describe the rule of law . .
_
.
:.
.
. _
.

..
.
.
.
....
.
. .. in the country as a whole
.
...
.

...

_..
.
_
.

, and in your
province in particular
.
..

-
.

...

.
.
.

.

. .
.
_
.

? The four response options are not

strong at all
.
v..
.
_.
.

.

.
.

., not very strong .-

.

.

.
.

., somewhat
strong .. .- _:
.

.

.
, and very strong .-

.

.
.
35
The question wording is, to what extent are government and political aairs so
complicated that people like yourself often cannot understand what is happening? (In
Arabic:

.
_.

. _.

...
.
.

.
.
..
.
...
.
...
.
. _<.
:

.
.

.
.
.
.
.
..
.
. ..
.
.
_:
.
: ..
.

_..
.
.


... .,

..
.
) The ve response options are always ..
.
., usually ,

...

.
, sometimes
.

.


..

, rarely ..

., and never ..

.
_..
.
.
.. In
the subsequent data analysis, I order the responses such that higher values always refer
to greater levels of political understanding.
36
The question categorizes respondents according to completed education, asking what
is the highest level of education you have obtained? (In Arabic:
.
. .. _.
.
. . .
: .
.
..
.
.. _
.
..
.
..
.
.) The ve response options are illiterate _
.
.
. .
.
..

_. _
.

.

.
_
.
.
.
,
nished elementary
.

..
.
.

_. _
.

.

.
_
.
.
. .
.
..

, nished secondary

_. _
.

.

.

.

..
.
.

.
.
.
...-

.
....
.
., college degree

.
.
.
..

..

_. _
.

.

.

.
.
.
...-

.
....
.
., and masters or higher
.
.
..
.

.
.
.
..

...
37
This question serves as a measure of material deprivation. The wording is, on an
average day, how many hours is the electricity o in your home? (In Arabic: _ ...
: .

..

_. ...

,< ..
.

.
.
.

.
.
. ,.
.
_
.

.
...)
38
The question wording is, regardless of how important it is to you, do you consider
yourself aliated with a tribe? (In Arabic: _
.
.
.
.

..
.

. _. ...
.
.

..
.
.
.
..
.

_.

.

..

:
.
..
.
.

.
_:
.
)
22
area (Rural), and whether or not the respondent lives in a province of the
former southern republic (South).
4 Analysis
4.1 Tribal Law
4.1.1 Basic Model
The rst model I present is a basic one that seeks to accomplish two things.
First, from a methodological standpoint, I attempt to validate the use of the
survey data as a viable means to capture important aspects of Yemeni social
reality. To the degree that the inferences that may be drawn from these data
accord with our basic expectations, we may have greater condence both in
the data as well as in the subsequent inferences I draw from a more complex
model. Second, from a substantive standpoint, I attempt to indicate the
degree to which there is a dierence between Zaydi Shia and Shafai Sunni
Yemenis in their views on tribal law given that the tribal system has tra-
ditionally been strongest among members of the Zaydi community. Hence,
the nding on the Zaydi variable is of substantive interest once controlling
for the eect of the basic socioeconomic, educational, and demographic con-
trols on responses. The results of this basic model, estimated via an ordered
probit procedure due to the ordinal nature of the dependent variable, are
presented in Table 1.
b se(b)
p
Zaydi 0.251 (0.085)
0.00
Tribesman 0.578 (0.074)
0.00
Education 0.451 (0.108)
0.00
Understand 0.207 (0.114)
0.07
Female 0.261 (0.071)
0.00
Rural 0.147 (0.084)
0.08
Electricity 0.017 (0.021)
0.43
South 0.632 (0.126)
0.00
A
1
0.559 (0.133)
0.00
A
2
0.072 (0.068)
0.29
A
3
0.144 (0.105)
0.17
A
4
0.840 (0.058)
0.00
Table 1: Tribal Law Zaydi vs. Shafai
23
Table 1 yields little that is truly surprising, with the basic ndings largely
consistent with what an overview reading of the qualitative literature on
Yemen would suggest. This lack of surprises, in turn, implicitly validates
the survey questionnaire and survey data insofar as they yield inferences
that are consistent with the ndings of numerous other researchers utilizing
dierent research methodologies, which in turn gives us greater condence
in the inferences to be drawn subsequently from the more lled-out models.
Tribesmen are more sympathetic to the use of tribal law than are non-
tribesmen, whereas southerners view tribal law more negatively than do
northerners. The better educated are less supportive of tribal law than
are the less well-educated, and similarly so for city-dwellers and those who
understand politics better, although these latter two ndings are weaker and
less certain. Women view tribal law more negatively than men, although
the magnitude of the gender eect is not large. Finally, material well-being
(as measured by Electricity with a square-root transformation) appears to
have no inuence on attitudes toward tribal law, which is mildly surprising.
Finally, consistent with expectations but somewhat surprising due to the
mildness of the eect, Zaydi Shiites are more supportive of tribal law than
are Shafai Sunnis, but only marginally so. Figure 4 plots as rst dierences
39
the Zaydi premium: the additional support for tribal law attributable to be-
ing a Zaydi rather than a Shafai. As the gure indicates, Zaydis are more
likely to assess tribal law positively being less likely to say that it is very
or somewhat bad for dispute resolution and more likely to say that it is very
good but the dierences between the two communities are small. Hence,
the biggest shift between the two makes Zaydis an additional 10 percent
more likely than Shafais to say that tribal law is very good: a statistically
signicant but substantively marginal eect. Hence, after controlling for
other plausible factors the most relevant in this case likely to be tribal
membership and rural residency the broad dierences between commu-
nities is relatively modest, and certainly more modest than is sometimes
alleged by both researchers and political activists.
4.1.2 Courts Model
I now present a more elaborate model that builds o of the basic model by
considering directly respondents assessments of the state court system as a
39
The rst dierences are calculated as the dierence in predicted probability of re-
sponses between a Zaydi Shia and a Shafai Sunni respondent when the control variables
are set to their relevant measures of central tendency (i.e., means, medians, or modes as
appropriate).
24
Tribal Law
Zaydi Shia premium compared to Shafai Sunni
C
h
a
n
g
e

i
n

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e

0
.
2

0
.
1
0
.
0
0
.
1
0
.
2
Tribal
Law
Bad Good
Figure 4: Attitudes Toward Tribal Law Zaydi vs. Shafai Dierences
25
means to explain their views on the use of tribal law. As previously argued,
if Yemenis view tribal law as a substitute (however imperfect) for state law,
negative perceptions of the courts should translate into higher regard for
tribal law. This eect is likely to be conditional, however, on perceptions of
the existing degree of the rule of law (here, at both the country and province
level). Perceptions of strong rule of law may in principle be attributed to
either state law or tribal law, and hence we might expect that those who
perceive strong rule of law and weak courts will be most favorably disposed
to tribal law. To assess this expectation, I modify the basic model from
above in the following ways. First, the logic of this claim implies the use of
interactive terms in the model, in this case, a threeway interaction between
Courts, the key variable of interest, and Country ROL and Province ROL,
the conditioning variables that help indicate when perceptions of the courts
will have particularly strong explanatory power. Second, given the inclusion
of a threeway interaction, I split the sample between Zaydi Shia and Shafai
Sunni respondents for both substantive and methodological reasons.
40
I
present the results in Table 2.
Table 2 reveals two key points of note. First, perceptions of the courts
follow the expectation described above: low trust in the courts in the con-
text of perceived strong rule of law leads to higher regard for tribal law.
Second, there is an important caveat to this nding: it only occurs among
Shafai Sunnis, and there is no observable eect among Zaydi Shiites. Inter-
preting interactive eects is simpler when done graphically: Figure 5 does
so for Shafai respondents. In particular, it reports predicted probabilities
for three key combinations of variables: individuals reporting very weak rule
of law and no condence in state courts (left panel), those reporting very
strong rule of law and no condence in state courts (middle panel), and
those reporting very strong rule of law and high condence in state courts
(right panel). There are two important issues to note. First, and most ob-
viously, respondents in the middle category are clearly much more strongly
predisposed to tribal law than those on either end: they view the rule of law
as strong and, given that they have little trust in the state courts, they at-
tribute it to the positive role that tribal law plays in conict resolution, thus
explaining their positive views on tribal law. Second, responses between re-
40
In substantive terms, this enables me to examine whether similar patterns exist con-
ditional on being Zaydi or Shafai. In methodological terms, this enables me to achieve the
implicit fourway interaction without the exponential increase in complexity that would
make interpretation of the model ponderous. A threeway interaction requires the inclusion
of 7 constituent terms in the model, whereas a fourway interaction requires 15 constituent
terms.
26
Shafai Sunni Zaydi Shia
b se(b)
p
b se(b)
p
Courts 0.348 (0.371)
0.35
0.528 (0.737)
0.47
Country ROL 0.557 (0.408)
0.17
0.558 (0.759)
0.46
Province ROL 1.551 (0.501)
0.00
0.472 (1.141)
0.68
Courts Country ROL 0.438 (0.895)
0.62
0.929 (1.505)
0.54
Courts Province ROL 2.045 (1.001)
0.04
0.829 (2.147)
0.70
Country ROL Province ROL 3.458 (0.867)
0.00
1.320 (1.620)
0.42
Courts Country ROL Province ROL 4.094 (1.462)
0.01
0.910 (2.836)
0.75
Tribesman 0.563 (0.081)
0.00
0.622 (0.211)
0.00
Education 0.512 (0.126)
0.00
0.116 (0.238)
0.63
Understand 0.229 (0.131)
0.08
0.350 (0.264)
0.19
Female 0.289 (0.089)
0.00
0.418 (0.147)
0.00
Rural 0.137 (0.099)
0.17
0.130 (0.182)
0.47
Electricity 0.023 (0.024)
0.34
0.018 (0.051)
0.72
South 0.717 (0.135)
0.00
A
1
0.599 (0.191)
0.00
0.752 (0.433)
0.08
A
2
0.073 (0.075)
0.33
0.372 (0.171)
0.03
A
3
0.182 (0.113)
0.11
0.269 (0.327)
0.41
A
4
0.862 (0.070)
0.00
0.520 (0.103)
0.00
Table 2: Tribal Law Courts Eect
2
7
spondents on either end are virtually indistinguishable from one another. In
other words, perceptions of weak rule of law and weak state courts yield the
same views on tribal law as do perceptions of strong rule of law and strong
state courts. This nding reinforces the claim that tribal law is viewed as a
substitute for state law: attitudes toward tribal law hardly vary when rule
of law and court perceptions go together, but are notably more positive
when the rule of law is perceived to be strong when the courts are weak.
Shafais, in the latter case, are particularly predisposed to tribal law because
it provides them with something they want when the state cannot or will
not provide it: basic security and predictability.
The second nding that the courts dynamic is observable among
Shafais but not Zaydis was unanticipated, but is of substantive signif-
icance. In eect, this implies that attitudes toward tribal law vary among
Shafais for qualitatively dierent reasons than they do among Zaydis. Spec-
ulatively, given that the tribal system has traditionally been less strongly
embedded among Shafai Sunnis, we might expect the logic of pragmatism
implied by the courts argument to be particularly prominent among Shafais,
who would be more inclined to view tribes and tribal law in functional terms
than would Zaydis. Such an interpretation is consistent with the widely re-
ported attempts of Shafai Sunnis across Yemen to retribalize in the context
of Yemens deteriorating institutions. Nonetheless, this speculation is hardly
denitive, and more research is required to understand these qualitative dif-
ferences between the communities.
4.2 Tribes and Development
Having rst examined determinants of support for the use of tribal law in
Yemen, I turn now to Yemenis assessments of the role of tribes in devel-
opment whether the tribes are a positive inuence for development or
are holding the country back. In modeling Yemenis views on tribes and
development, the principle explanatory variable is the one examined as an
outcome variable in Section 4.1: assessments of tribal law. To the degree
that people approve of the tribes because the tribes provide something that
people want security and the rule of law we should expect that their
views on the tribes overall should be strongly conditional on their views
toward tribal law. Put another way: support for tribal law explains support
for the tribes more generally. Conversely, if views on the tribes primarily re-
ect other interests, such as social identity concerns or traditionalism, then
views on tribal law should have little explanatory power once we control for
variables that could account for identity and tradition concerns.
28
Very Bad
Somewhat
Bad Middle
Somewhat
Good Very Good
Assessment of Tribal Law
Very Weak Rule of Law, No Confidence in State Judiciary
P
r
e
d
ic
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
ilit
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e
0
.0
0
.2
0
.4
0
.6
0
.8
1
.0
Very Bad
Somewhat
Bad Middle
Somewhat
Good Very Good
Assessment of Tribal Law
Very Strong Rule of Law, No Confidence in State Judiciary
P
r
e
d
ic
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
ilit
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e
0
.0
0
.2
0
.4
0
.6
0
.8
1
.0
Very Bad
Somewhat
Bad Middle
Somewhat
Good Very Good
Assessment of Tribal Law
Very Strong Rule of Law, Very Much Confidence in State Judiciary
P
r
e
d
ic
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
ilit
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e
0
.0
0
.2
0
.4
0
.6
0
.8
1
.0
Figure 5: Shafai Assessments of Tribal Law (Predicted Probabilities)
2
9
Tribal Law is the main explanatory variable in this model, but I antici-
pate that the strength of its eect varies according to sect and education. In
terms of the former, Zaydi Shiites, among whom the tribal system has tradi-
tionally been strongest, are more likely to derive social identity benets from
a positive evaluation of tribalism than are Shafai Sunnis. In terms of the lat-
ter, better educated individuals have more familiarity with alternative legal
frameworks and are more likely to comprehend the imperfections of tribal
law, whereas people with minimal access to education lack the comparative
framework that highlights the imperfections of tribal law. As before, I also
include the same core set of control variables. The results of this model,
again estimated via an ordered probit procedure given the ordinal nature of
responses to the question on the role of tribes in development, is presented
in Table 3.
b se(b)
p
Tribal Law 2.259 (0.179)
0.00
Education 0.057 (0.193)
0.77
Zaydi 0.203 (0.251)
0.42
Tribal Law Education 0.783 (0.298)
0.01
Tribal Law Zaydi 0.684 (0.348)
0.05
Education Zaydi 0.025 (0.446)
0.96
Tribal Law Education Zaydi 0.034 (0.645)
0.96
Tribesman 0.164 (0.078)
0.04
Understand 0.026 (0.118)
0.83
Female 0.354 (0.074)
0.00
Rural 0.114 (0.087)
0.19
Electricity 0.031 (0.022)
0.15
South 0.220 (0.132)
0.09
A
1
0.543 (0.169)
0.00
A
2
1.310 (0.060)
0.00
A
3
1.671 (0.094)
0.00
A
4
2.600 (0.058)
0.00
Table 3: Tribes and Development
Table 3 allows us to draw a few unsurprising inferences, as well as sev-
eral more interesting ones. Unsurprisingly, tribesmen are more positively
inclined toward the role of tribes in development, whereas southerners view
the tribes more negatively (although the latter is of marginal statistical sig-
nicance). These ndings accord well with our expectations derived from
30
prior studies of Yemen, and are useful in the current context insofar as they
implicitly verify the survey datas capacity to supply us with valid inferences
about Yemeni social reality. Substantively, these two variables also capture
elements of the social identity issues that motivate peoples attitudes: tribes-
men derive social identity benets from positive evaluations of the tribes,
whereas southerners, for whom tribalism is largely associated with the ruling
northern regime, derive social identity benets from negative evaluations of
the tribes.
More interesting, and as hypothesized, views on tribal law strongly in-
uence views on the tribes more generally, even net of other plausible ex-
planators such as social identity concerns. First, as expected, Tribal Law
has a very strong, positive eect that is signicant in both substantive and
statistical terms: the more favorably predisposed one is to tribal law, the
more favorably disposed one is toward a tribal role in development. Put an-
other way, the more one sees tribal law contributing to the rule of law in the
country, the more likely one is to view the tribes themselves as contributing
to, rather than hindering, Yemens development.
Yet, as anticipated, this relationship is a conditional one: its strength
depends in part on ones level of education and whether or not one is Zaydi.
This result is easiest to observe when displayed graphically as in Figure 6,
which reports the rst dierences in outcome (views on tribes and devel-
opment) associated with the dierence between a positive and a negative
assessment of tribal law. Each set of four bar graphs denotes whether a
typical respondent becomes more likely to cite a tribal role in development
negatively (leftmost bars) or positively (rightmost bars) according to a pos-
itive assessment of tribal law: positive values on the y-axis indicate what
such a respondent is more likely to answer, and negative values on the y-axis
indicate what such a respondent is less likely to answer. This eect is con-
ditional on sect Shafai Sunnis on in the two left graphs (blue) and Zaydi
Shiites in the right two (green) and education, with low education in the
rst and third sets of bars and high education in the second and fourth sets
of bars.
Figure 6 reveals that positive evaluations of tribal law have a strong
positive impact on evaluations of a tribal role in development in all cases
the rightmost bars associated with a positive tribal role are all in positive
territory and the leftmost bars associated with a negative tribal role are
sharply into negative territory and that the magnitude of this eect
is reduced somewhat among better educated individuals.
41
Put another
41
The latter is evident in Table 3 in the statistically signicant negative coecient on
31
Low
education
High
education
Low
education
High
education
Tribes and Development
(Tribal Law Effect)
Effect of positive evaluations of tribal law on evaluations of the effect of tribes on development
C
h
a
n
g
e

i
n

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e

1
.
0

0
.
5
0
.
0
0
.
5
1
.
0
Tribal Tribal Tribal Tribal
Effect Effect Effect Effect
Bad Bad Bad Bad Good Good Good Good
Shafai Sunni Zaydi Shia
Figure 6: Attitudes Toward Tribes and Development Tribal Law Eect
3
2
way, enthusiasm for tribal law translates into enthusiasm for a tribal role in
development regardless of education, but the enthusiasm is somewhat milder
among the better educated who are more aware of the defects of tribal law.
Another aspect of the model, also visible in Figure 6 but easier to observe
in Figure 7, is that a Zaydi premium the extra support Zaydis give to
a tribal role in development on top of what Shafais give exists only in
circumscribed set of circumstances: among low-education respondents who
view tribal law extremely positively. Figure 7 plots the eect of being Zaydi
given negative (left two sets of bars in blue) and positive views (right two
sets of bars in green) on tribal law given low and high levels of education. No
Zaydi premium is evident among respondents with negative views of tribal
law, and a Zaydi premium is only statistically discernible (i.e., suciently
unlikely to happen by chance) among the least educated proponents of tribal
law. In other words, simply being Zaydi does not, by itself, indicate anything
one way or another about an individuals views on the role of tribes in
development except under very specic conditions. This nding, in turn,
reinforces the claim that Yemenis view tribes pragmatically and with an
eye toward functionality. They approve of tribes when the tribes provide
something socially desirable basic rule of law in the form of a means of
conict regulation and resolution and disapprove of them otherwise.
5 Discussion
This paper argues that, rather than causing the state to weaken, tribes
persist when the state is weak. A state with weak institutions is unable or
unwilling to provide the rule of law, a true public good, and people turn to
alternatives suppliers to meet their demand for it. The informal institution
of customary tribal law is one such mechanism, serving as a second-best
alternative to functioning state institutions. Tribal law amounts to a semi-
private means to provide the rule of law, making it an imperfect substitute
to formal state institutions such as the judiciary: inecient, but clearly
better than nothing. Whatever other reasons people may have for positive
or negative evaluations of tribal law and the tribes in general, one would
expect a pragmatic component to be evident in those assessments: people
approve of tribal law and the tribes at least in part for what they can
provide: a modicum of security, stability, and predictability. In this view,
the tribes are less an impediment to development than they are a product
of its absence.
Tribal Law Education.
33
Low
education
High
education
Low
education
High
education
Tribes and Development
(Zaydi Premium)
Effect of being Zaydi on evaluations of the effect of tribes on development
C
h
a
n
g
e

i
n

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e

0
.
6

0
.
4

0
.
2
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
Tribal Tribal Tribal Tribal
Effect Effect Effect Effect
Bad Bad Bad Bad Good Good Good Good
Tribal Law Negative Tribal Law Positive
Figure 7: Attitudes Toward Tribes and Development Zaydi v. Shafai Dierences
3
4
Substantively, this paper demonstrates that peoples assessments of tribal
law as a conict-resolution mechanism vary for predictable reasons. Al-
though Zaydi Shiites, given the traditional strength of the tribal system in
that community, are more supportive of tribal law than are Shafai Sunnis,
they are only marginally so. Further, Shafai Sunnis, who plausibly look to
tribal law with a stronger eye to practicality, are particularly likely to favor
it when they view state courts as week even though they perceive strong rule
of law, which they attribute to tribal law. Further, as expected, views on
tribal law strongly predict views on the role of tribes in development, even
net of other factors that could explain attitudes toward the tribes in general.
A strong dynamic of pragmatism exists among both Zaydis and Shafais, in
which tribes are viewed favorably in the development process when tribal
law is seen to provide a viable means for conict regulation and resolution
an enthusiasm which is particularly strong among the less well-educated
who are less cognizant of the demerits of tribal law.
Methodologically, this paper demonstrates (hopefully) the utility of sur-
vey research in the Arab world for studying social processes of substan-
tive import and interest to scholars whose own predilections run to dier-
ent methodologies. Scholars of Arab societies have long looked askance at
quantitatively-oriented research in general and survey research in particu-
lar, and for good reason. In years past the data needed to perform such
analyses were unavailable or untrustworthy. Governments published data
that was clearly subject to political manipulations, and it was frequently
infeasible from an administrative standpoint (when not impossible from a
political one) to collect reliable data oneself. Yet recent years have seen a
small but growing number of Middle East scholars basing their research on
new surveys the most well-know of which now include six Arab coun-
tries in the World Values Survey along with the Arab Barometer project
which have become increasingly sophisticated and reliable sources of data.
Although many issues remain on the table with respect to the diculties
of administering of surveys in societies where surveys are a novelty (and
the care with which data analysis must be undertaken as a result of that
novelty), this paper has attempted to show that survey analysis provides us
with a useful complement to more traditional ethnographic and elite-based
studies, lling in blanks where such methods are weakest and drawing on
their insights where survey methodology by itself could not supply answers.
35
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