Legacies of state-building and political fragility in conflict-ridden Yemen: Understanding civil service change and contemporary challenges

Constitutional, economic and administrative reforms have generated debates about their unintended consequences in poor and developing countries, and the best way to steer them towards better outcomes. In-depth case study analysis helps in tailoring future reforms and enriches academic literature on countries faced with the complex and intertwined problems of fragility, traditional actors, state building and donor involvement. This paper aims at examining the legacies of state-building and civil service reforms in Yemen by providing a narrative of motivations, outcomes as well as the involved politics and actors. Yemen's state institutions have evolved from times of colonization and isolation to pass through centralization in the two-state era, reunification, decentralization and reorientation towards merit-based bureaucracy. Yemen's reform experiences did not result in well-performing administrative and civil service institutions while they were often ad hoc, rushed or born out of political circumstances and donors' pressure. Alongside the devastating civil war, contemporary state-building challenges result from legacies of reform failures. Current problems are exacerbated by long-standing policies of patronage, but they are also a reflection of the difficult reality of dominance of tribal elites, lack of capacities, interference from regional powers, and disagreements about the future shape of the Yemeni state.The author received no direct funding for this research. Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.Scopu

Why is state-centered groundwater governance largely ineffective ? A review

Faced with severe groundwater depletion, many governments have opted to increase the power of the state. Despite calls for more inclusive governance and a role for groundwater users, modes of governance have tended to continue to rely on a diversity of policy tools and state-run strategies in the attempt to control groundwater (over)abstraction. Yet, around the world, the performance of state-centered governance has remained dismal. Beyond common difficulties in terms of data and financial or human resources, this article analyzes in greater depth the limited effectiveness of state groundwater policies that has been observed, emphasizing its political ramifications. The various aspects of weak monitoring and enforcement, as well as of the infamous "lack of political will," are considered from the perspective of the political economy of groundwater economies. Cases of relative success are then used to identify favorable drivers and contexts for effective state-centered groundwater governance. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Engineering Water > Planning Wate