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Empire and federation in South Arabia, 1952-1967

Empire and federation in South Arabia, 1952-1967
Empire and federation in South Arabia, 1952-1967
This thesis examines the development and failure of the idea of a South Arabian federal state at the end of the British Empire. As an effort to shape a postcolonial future that would protect British imperial agency against the forces of decolonisation, this thesis argues that the federal idea and resulting Federation of South Arabia were undermined by contradictions in British imperial policy, primary amongst these being the effort to fuse the mutually incompatible goals of bringing South Arabia to independence whilst simultaneously denying local agency over, and facilitate British control over, South Arabia’s post-colonial future. With the colony of Aden’s merger into the Federation, the contorted rationalisations of achieving merger without local consent created a precarious entanglement and fuelled the move towards the anti-federal, radical, and violent trajectory of nationalist politics. With federal thinking and its official advocates dominant within the colonial administration, there was little scope for a revaluation of policy as the precarity of the federal project became more exposed and the security situation deteriorated. Whilst the Wilson Government sought to reset collaborative relations in the face of an intractable inheritance, an informal network of British officials and politicians attempted to maintain the Federation’s preferential position and reverse Government policy. Yet both efforts were overtaken by the intractability of the situation, the collapse of the Federation, and escalating violence in Aden as the British prepared for withdrawal. After fighting for dominance against its rivals, the National Liberation Front would instead emerge to take South Arabia to independence as the People’s Republic of South Yemen in November 1967. This thesis demonstrates that the centrality of the federal idea to British policy, powerfully maintained by British officials in South Arabia, drove the conflict with a growing nationalist opposition in Aden, shaped the course of the end of empire, and precluded the chance of a stable postcolonial federal future.
University of Southampton
Higgins, Joseph, Andrew James
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Higgins, Joseph, Andrew James
0bfba941-e6bf-4bd6-b098-f8766d9d9461
Prior, Christopher
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Tumblety, Joan
8742e0ca-a9c0-4d16-832f-b3ef643efd7b

Higgins, Joseph, Andrew James (2022) Empire and federation in South Arabia, 1952-1967. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis, 229pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis examines the development and failure of the idea of a South Arabian federal state at the end of the British Empire. As an effort to shape a postcolonial future that would protect British imperial agency against the forces of decolonisation, this thesis argues that the federal idea and resulting Federation of South Arabia were undermined by contradictions in British imperial policy, primary amongst these being the effort to fuse the mutually incompatible goals of bringing South Arabia to independence whilst simultaneously denying local agency over, and facilitate British control over, South Arabia’s post-colonial future. With the colony of Aden’s merger into the Federation, the contorted rationalisations of achieving merger without local consent created a precarious entanglement and fuelled the move towards the anti-federal, radical, and violent trajectory of nationalist politics. With federal thinking and its official advocates dominant within the colonial administration, there was little scope for a revaluation of policy as the precarity of the federal project became more exposed and the security situation deteriorated. Whilst the Wilson Government sought to reset collaborative relations in the face of an intractable inheritance, an informal network of British officials and politicians attempted to maintain the Federation’s preferential position and reverse Government policy. Yet both efforts were overtaken by the intractability of the situation, the collapse of the Federation, and escalating violence in Aden as the British prepared for withdrawal. After fighting for dominance against its rivals, the National Liberation Front would instead emerge to take South Arabia to independence as the People’s Republic of South Yemen in November 1967. This thesis demonstrates that the centrality of the federal idea to British policy, powerfully maintained by British officials in South Arabia, drove the conflict with a growing nationalist opposition in Aden, shaped the course of the end of empire, and precluded the chance of a stable postcolonial federal future.

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Available under License University of Southampton Thesis Licence.

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Submitted date: May 2022

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 457256
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/457256
PURE UUID: d699a202-def2-49b7-989d-8a2d41f07066
ORCID for Christopher Prior: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1014-0598

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Date deposited: 30 May 2022 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:31

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Contributors

Author: Joseph, Andrew James Higgins
Thesis advisor: Christopher Prior ORCID iD
Thesis advisor: Joan Tumblety

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