The UAE’s foreign policymaking in Yemen: from bandwagoning to buck-passing

Abstract

The military intervention in Yemen is analysed in this paper within a context dominated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There are several scholarly works regarding the Emirates' involvement in Yemen, but there are only a few about the recent series of transformations that the policymaking has undergone. This research aims to fill this gap by arguing that the prioritisation of national interest has transformed the Emirati policy regarding Yemen from 'bandwagoning' to 'buck-passing'. The main objective in this paper is to scrutinise the UAE's motivations in engaging in a buck-passing strategy towards Qatar and Saudi Arabia. From this point of view, any proper examination of the UAE's drivers in policy change must begin by investigating the relationship between internal and external motivations. The assessment combines levels of systemic and individual dimensions in order to examine two main motivations as to why the buck-passing is articulated to bandwagoning. A structural complexity is embedded in the UAE's strategies. Prioritisation of economic gains over military interests and the consolidation of internal power are two reasons for such policy transformation.

Untitled

“…Citizens 2.0 targets both the minds and hearts of the citizens. Indeed, the process of instilling national identity and patriotism in the UAE's citizenry increased with the Yemeni intervention and Gulf Crises, both of which occurred within the last decade (Diwan, 2015;Freer, 2017;Ardemagni, 2019Ardemagni, , 2020Parvez, 2020;Dogan-Akkas, 2021). Therefore, even as this study agrees with Jones' depiction of the UAE's supposed national homogeneity as occurring as a result of top-down social engineering, it emphasises the importance of ongoing, ever-increasing, state efforts to instil national identity and patriotism.…”