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HWS News

5 February 2024 • Faculty Philbrick Yadav in New York Times By Andrew Wickenden '09

Professor of International Relations Stacey Philbrick Yadav discusses the U.S. and U.K. retaliatory airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In the New York Times, Professor of International Relations Stacey Philbrick Yadav offered analysis of military strikes on sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants. The strikes follow Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and a recent drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.

“I don’t see how these airstrikes achieve U.S. objectives or avoid further regional escalation,” said Philbrick Yadav, who also serves as chair of International Relations at HWS. “While they may degrade Houthi capabilities in the short term, the group’s leadership has vowed to continue its Red Sea attacks and to retaliate in response to these airstrikes.”

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Philbrick Yadav, who has conducted field research in Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt, is the author most recently of Yemen in the Shadow of Transition: Pursuing Justice Amid War. Drawing on 17 years of field research and collaboration with Yemeni researchers, the book analyzes the efforts of the country’s civil actors as they try to build peace amid the ongoing civil war, diplomatic stalemate and humanitarian crisis that followed the Arab Spring. Her previous book explores the dynamics of Islamist activism and alliance building. Her scholarly articles have appeared in journals such as The International Journal of Middle East Studies and Middle East Report.

As chair of the Middle East and North African (MENA) Politics section of the American Political Science Association from 2021-23, Philbrick Yadav supported scholars from the MENA region through a Research Development Group and helped advance work to guide the section’s ethics and best practices regarding cross-national research collaboration in the MENA region.

A member of the HWS faculty since 2007, Philbrick Yadav earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies from Smith College. In 2008, she was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. For her outstanding scholarship and public engagement on the complex politics of the Middle East, Philbrick Yadav was named the 2018-2019 recipient of the John R. and Florence B. Kinghorn Global Fellowship.