Quasi-state

The precise definition of quasi-state in political literature fluctuates depending on the context in which it is used. It has been used by some modern scholars to describe the self-governing British colonies and dependencies that exercised a form of home rule but remained crucial parts of the British Empire and subject firstly to the metropole's administration. Similarly, the Republics of the Soviet Union, which represented administrative units with their own respective national distinctions, have also been described as quasi-states.

In the 21st century usage, the term quasi-state has most often been evoked in reference to militant secessionist groups who claim, and exercise some form of territorial control over, a specific region, but which lack institutional cohesion. Such quasi-states include the Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia during the Bosnian War, the Republic of Serbian Krajina during the Croatian War of Independence, and Azawad during the 2012 Tuareg rebellion. The Islamic State is also widely held to be an example of a modern quasi-state.

History

The term "proto-state" has been used in reference to contexts as far back as Ancient Greece, to refer to the phenomenon that the formation of a large and cohesive nation would often be preceded by very small and loose forms of statehood. For instance, historical sociologist Garry Runciman describes the evolution of social organisation in the Greek Dark Ages from statelessness, to what he calls semistates based on patriarchal domination but lacking inherent potential to achieve the requirements for statehood, sometimes transitioning into protostates with governmental roles able to maintain themselves generationally, which could evolve into larger, more centralised entities fulfilling the requirements of statehood by 700 BC in the archaic period. The term "quasi-state" is now used in a similar context.

Most ancient quasi-states were the product of tribal societies, consisting of relatively short-lived confederations of communities that united under a single warlord or chieftain endowed with symbolic authority and military rank. These were not considered sovereign states since they rarely achieved any degree of institutional permanence and authority was often exercised over a mobile people rather than measurable territory. Loose confederacies of this nature were the primary means of embracing a common statehood by people in many regions, such as the Central Asian steppes, throughout ancient history.

Quasi-states proliferated in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, likely as a result of a trend towards political decentralisation following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the adoption of feudalism. While theoretically owing allegiance to a single monarch under the feudal system, many lesser nobles administered their own fiefs as miniature "states within states" that were independent of each other. This practice was especially notable with regards to large, decentralised political entities such as the Holy Roman Empire, that incorporated many autonomous and semi-autonomous quasi-states.

Following the Age of Discovery, the emergence of European colonialism resulted in the formation of colonial quasi-states in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. A few colonies were given the unique status of protectorates, which were effectively controlled by the metropole but retained limited ability to administer themselves, self-governing colonies, dominions, and dependencies. These were distinct administrative units that each fulfilled many of the functions of a state without actually exercising full sovereignty or independence. Colonies without a sub-national home rule status, on the other hand, were considered administrative extensions of the colonising power rather than true quasi-states. Colonial quasi-states later served as the basis for a number of modern nation states, particularly on the Asian and African continents.

During the twentieth century, some quasi-states existed as not only distinct administrative units, but their own theoretically self-governing republics joined to each other in a political union such as the socialist federal systems observed in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.

Another form of quasi-state that has become especially common since the end of World War II is established through the unconstitutional seizure of territory by an insurgent or militant group that proceeds to assume the role of a de facto government. Although denied recognition and bereft of civil institutions, insurgent quasi-states may engage in external trade, provide social services, and even undertake limited diplomatic activity. These quasi-states are usually formed by movements drawn from geographically concentrated ethnic or religious minorities, and are thus a common feature of inter-ethnic civil conflicts. This is often due to the inclinations of an internal cultural identity group seeking to reject the legitimacy of a sovereign state's political order, and create its own enclave where it is free to live under its own sphere of laws, social mores, and ordering. Since the 1980s a special kind of insurgent statehood has emerged in form of the "Jihadi proto-state", as the Islamist concept of statehood is extremely flexible. For instance, a Jihadi emirate can be simply understood as a territory or group ruled by an emir; accordingly, it might rule a significant area or just a neighborhood. Regardless of its extent, the assumption of statehood provides Jihadi militants with important internal legitimacy and cements their self-identification as frontline society opposed to certain enemies.

The accumulation of territory by an insurgent force to form a sub-national geopolitical system and eventually, a quasi-state, was a calculated process in China during the Chinese Civil War that set a precedent for many similar attempts throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Quasi-states established as a result of civil conflict typically exist in a perpetual state of warfare and their wealth and populations may be limited accordingly. One of the most prominent examples of a wartime quasi-state in the twenty-first century is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, that maintained its own administrative bureaucracy and imposed taxes.