ABSTRACT
Yemen is a republican anomaly alongside its monarchical neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, and its location on the geographic periphery of the region belies its relationship to many of the most central intellectual, political, and economic trends in the Middle East and North Africa. The occupation of Yemen by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century and the Turks' expulsion after a long struggle led by the Zaydi imamate over the next century served to deepen a sense of Yemeni identity. Moreover, economic conditions were increasingly grim for most Yemenis, with unemployment persistently holding at about 40 percent and mal-nourishment and poverty remaining very high. President Hadi was unable to advance Yemen's political transition effectively enough to forestall another crisis, this far more destructive than the events of 2011. There remains an old and sometimes politically and socially salient cleavage between the Zaydis and Shafi'is, but this arguably represents an artifact of the country's politics more than any ideological acrimony.
