The role of local actors in Yemen civil war and their participation in the peacebuilding process

In this study, the spread of the Arab uprisings to Yemen in 2011, the transformation of the peaceful social demonstrations into a civil war as a result of the government's interventions, and the subsequent civil war process and peace initiatives are analyzed through local actors, their positions, ideologies and structures in the historical process. The historical positions of the local actors involved in the civil war and their relations with the state have determined the positions and attitudes of the actors in the civil war that started in 2015 and the peace negotiations attempted to be realized afterwards. Based on this assumption, the study first analyzed the historical background and structure of local actors. For this purpose, the positions of the actors in the events that took place in the country's recent political history were also included in order to understand their motivations in the civil war. Then, in order to better understand their roles in the civil war and to reveal their increasing or decreasing spheres of influence in the civil war, the positions of the actors were compared before and after the Arab uprisings. As a result of this comparison, it is seen that the Houthis, Southerners and AQAP have increased their sphere of influence in the country compared to the past, while the central government's sphere of influence has shrunk. Finally, the attitudes of local actors in the peace negotiations process were analyzed. In this process, it is seen that the physical and legal positions of the parties are effective especially in the negotiations between the Houthis and the government. While conducting this analysis, sources such as books, articles, reports and news obtained from the literature review were used. As a result of these analyzes, it was seen that the problems of the actors with historical depth affected the civil war and peace negotiations.