United State Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion in Yemen 2011-2014
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of International Development and Gender
Gender-Development Research & Studies Center (GDRSC)
Sanaa University
By
Ashwaq Abdulsalam Shuja’a Addin
Under the supervision of professors:
Adnan Yassin Al-Maktary, Head of Political Science Department, Vice Dean for Community Affairs,
Faculty of Commerce and Economic
Sanaa University
2020
ABSTRACT
The research argues the role of USA policy in promoting democracy in Yemen after the Arab Spring uprisings 2011-2014. This topic couldn’t be tackled without taking into consideration the appearance of the MB as a significant variable power effect and affected by the USA policy agenda during the transition period 2011-2014. The study investigates the justifications behind suspending the democracy promotion agenda and the preoccupation of the MB file on America’s priorities agenda. It also explores the underlined reasons beyond the failure of the transition period and the collapse of the MB (Islah party) in Yemen.
The paper studies the mechanism of USA policy formation and the role of think-tank in forming the attitudes of the USA administrations and decision-makers toward Islam which has been reflected in their policies and strategies in the middle east after the Arab Spring Uprising. All these policies have its implications on the democracy agenda, especially after the presence of the MB in the forefront in the post-Arab spring period…and how they cast their dimensions on the MB in Egypt as well as in Yemen. Therefore, It is more comprehensive and logical to tackle the topic of Yemen as a part of the middle east context and referring to the revolutions which have taken place in the region especially the collapse of the MB in Egypt as the spiritual father for the other MB entities in Yemen.
The nature of the research issue imposed the researcher to study many interlinked factors and actors interacting with each other and laid their shadow on the Yemeni context. These elements are the U.S.A foreign policy, democracy promotion, Arab spring, and the MB in addition to the domestic and regional actor’s role. The researcher studied these elements in the light of the Real New Classical Theory (defensive and offensive) which helped in understanding the internal mechanism of the USA policy decision making as well as studying the motivation behind the US behaviors toward the political Islam and democracy agenda. The study indicates also theses of many of the prominent scholars in USA policy affairs which influences USA decision making. The researcher used the Role Analysis Methodology which applied mostly in the field the international relation interaction analysis. This Methodology helped in studying the role of each component, entity, a country at the domestic, regional, and international levels.
The paper comes to that result; the USA policy agenda in the middle east is a comprehensive framework, it may be different in some of the details responding to geopolitical and geographical variables for each country but there is a common core point amplify the main USA classical goals in the middle east. The USA administration favored the interests on principles and never allows any power entity grows in the middle east, regardless to its background or the consequences, the pseudo-democracy promotion agenda in the middle east was only a tool used for creating more divisions in the political and social life of the Yemeni community since the democracy wasn’t come out from the root of the community, and wasn’t accompanied with the institutional social and ideological alteration. Therefore, the democracy agenda was pseudo and fragile, and its outcomes appeared in 2011 and beyond. Finally, the agenda of the USA couldn’t able to pass to Yemen without the regional actors’ role and nothing could be achieved without the domestic tools. The research concluded The Uprising of Arab spring which was supposed to a safe life gate toward democracy alteration, it rather becomes a historical opportunity for the USA to inaugurate its new phase of segmentation and chaos in the middle east and Yemen where the project aspects started to appear obviously in the ground.
