Power and Patronage; A Comparison of Tribal Service in S.W. Arabia and Waziristan

This article examines the concept of tribal service as applied by British administrators on the North-West Frontier of India and in South-West Arabia during the latter part of the colonial era. By examining a series of themes within the exercise of recruitment from among tribal society for the purposes of pacification, it seeks to illustrate not only the commonalities in approach between two distant political cadres, but also the inherent difficulties in applying administrative methods to complex and reactive tribal societies, and the unintended consequences that arose contrary to expectation.