page_title: Proto-state
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Proto-state / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Liberated and semi-liberated territory during the first session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (26-27 November 1942) Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски: Oslobođena i poluoslobođena teritorija u vreme prvog zasedanja AVNOJ-a (26-27 novembra 1942. godine)
context_page_description: A proto-state, also known as a quasi-state, is a political entity that does not represent a fully institutionalized or autonomous sovereign state.
  The precise definition of proto-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 proto-states.
  In more recent usage, the term proto-state has most often been evoked in reference to militant secessionist groups that claim, and exercise some form of territorial control over, a specific region but lack institutional cohesion. Such proto-states include the Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia during the Bosnian War and Azawad during the 2012 Tuareg rebellion. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is also widely held to be an example of a modern proto-state.
context_section_description: The term "proto-state" has been used in 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 Gary Runciman noted that Greek city-states in classical antiquity such as Athens were initially weak proto-states that later evolved into larger and more centralised political entities. Most ancient proto-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.
  Proto-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 proto-states.
  Following the Age of Discovery, the emergence of European colonialism resulted in the formation of colonial proto-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 proto-states. Colonial proto-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 proto-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 proto-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 proto-states may engage in external trade, provide social services, and even undertake limited diplomatic activity. These proto-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.
  The accumulation of territory by an insurgent force to form a sub-national geopolitical system and eventually, a proto-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. Proto-states established as a result of civil conflict typically exist in a perpetual state of warfare and their wealth and popu
caption: Territory controlled by the Anti-Fascist Council of Yugoslavia, which established its own proto-state in 1942
exif: {}