Talk:Quasi-state

"Strike Force Against Terror"

@JaxsonR: Yesterday, on 2024-10-24, you added a quasi-state table entry for "Counter-Terrorism Strike Force administration in the Gaza Strip" (which I had deleted the day before with an explanatory edit description). As you have the WP:ONUS, could you please provide your rationale for what makes this a quasi-state?

Here's my thinking. The first paragraph of the lede makes it clear that quasi-states are less than full states, but the minimum criteria are fuzzy. The first ref (Grant & Barker) is quoted as saying that they have "many, but not all, the criteria of statehood ... which are nonetheless possessed of a measure of international personality". The 2025-09-22 Times of Israel ref you added says that Hossam al-Astal announced the formation of a militia that took over an "encampment" in a depopulated city with "dozens of families", and expected that 300-400 more people would arrive. Did these people ever arrive? Does this group, just announced, have many of the criteria of statehood? Does it have "international personality"? Did this group even survive the recent slaughter by Hamas that started during the current ceasefire?

The Griffiths ref has more specific criteria proto-state-hood, including (p. 52, 219) having 1000+ people and 100+ sq km of land, and being "organized administratively". In contrast, this militia sounds more like a small encampment serving as a refuge. Among his criteria for a secessionist movement (p. 50), Griffiths includes having a flag and making a claim to both a territory and a population, and that the secessionist group "must formally declare independence from its home state". This militia-with-refuge might be noteworthy and laudable, but it doesn't seem to rise to or even aspire to the level of being a quasi-state.

Lastly, please preview table edits you make to ensure that you don't mess up the table formatting. Thanks.

Dotyoyo (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

sorry, i understand im wrong and will revert it. JaxsonR (talk) 19:26, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. FWIW, I started out being skeptical of all the listed quasi-states that were named as rebel groups rather than as states. Some I've removed, while others I've kept. There's a gray are there. Please feel free to be WP:BOLD and do some more editing, even if some of those edits end up being reverted. Dotyoyo (talk) 03:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Azores...

This is wikipedia, for the love of god at least include a source that at least explains how a source could even be interpreted as the Azores being categorised as a "quasi-state", shall we add the Kingdom from Wizard of Oz or New Jersey as well? ~2026-13791-9 (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Republic of Kawthoolei

They recently declared independence and control territory. ~2025-31049-16 (talk) 19:47, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

No, there is no confirmation that they control any territory. The situation is explained in Kawthoolei. Aotearoa (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Nuking the "Age of Secession" citations

@Dotyoyo, I have been wondering if it would be best to just remove most if nit all of the citations from that book; I have been unable to acquire a full copy but from what I've read I can't really make sense of it or how it applies. The whole constituent tab doesn't make much sense to me outside of Iraqi Kurdistan and I find what of his methodology I could find kind of weird and not really relevant to what the term "quasi-state" really is about. Admittedly this is purely from my own inability to understand what he's writing but the page has been in dire straits for years because of that source being used to stuff the whole page; like how is Svalbard the same as Iraqi Kurdistan? NorthTension (talk) 23:58, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

@NorthTension: Wikipedia Library. With your edit history, you should be able to access the "Age of Secession" book through the Wikipedia Library: (a) Follow this link, then click on "Login via Wikipedia"; (b) Search for "Cambridge University Press", then click its "Access collection" link; (c) Search for the book title.

References. I agree that the "Age of Secession" citations aren't that helpful, but I'm not sure deleting them wholesale would improve the article, unless you can articulate in a concise edit summary why you think they're harmful. I would instead recommend gradually replacing uninformative Age of Secession references with more detailed ones from other sources, for specific quasi-states.

Article/table structure. I agree that this article is in "dire straits", in that the presentation feels clumsy, especially with the division into four separate tables. Should they be left as is, or unified into a single table with additional columns? Or maybe the info should be broken up by continent, or by historical era? Or maybe thematically, with one section for quasi-states that became states, one for those that fizzled, and one for those that still exist as quasi-states today? I have no idea. (BTW, different groupings might make some entries seem WP:UNDUE.)

Good luck! Dotyoyo (talk) 04:24, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Oh I had no idea Wikipedia Library even existed; my main issue with them is it's putting an undue viewpoint on an idea of places like Shetland being "proto-states" or "quasi-states" just because they're autonomous when as far as I can tell the vast majority of usages and references to quasi-states refer to ones arriving from conflict and all of the images on the page reflect this as well: ISIS, Free Yugoslavia, Azawad, and Serbian Krajina. Being able to actually read the book, Griffiths is using the term "proto-state" almost exclusively and defines it as "administrative units that are above a minimum size and either nationally distinct, geographically distant, indirectly ruled, or else recently transferred from another country". This doesn't seem to apply to the definition of quasi-state as used in modern times wr to militant groups (outside of Iraqi Kurdistan but that's its own weird case) managing territory the way the other examples I listed were. I don't read a lot of papers so this may not make sense, but it feels like this is his own personal definition for a term for use exclusively in his book. NorthTension (talk) 05:49, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I wasn't aware there was a widely-accepted, modern definition of quasi-state.

I agree that Ryan Griffiths' definition seems to be his own. Dotyoyo (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

For the former I'll admit that I may be overstating so I do apologize there. What I meant was what I just had seen in use in general primarily referring to al-Qaeda's statelets and ISIS. I do want to CC @MarketFruit since he has done numerous pages both published and WIP on quasi-states and would be a great help. NorthTension (talk) 11:33, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

What does CC mean? Militant.Insurgency (talk) 16:36, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

It means I'm including him in the discussion like an email. NorthTension (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I would personally remove it, due the definition of Ryan Griffiths. Or were just add a sentence were his definition is mentioned. MarketFruit (talk) 00:18, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I feel like this would be best as well, one guy's definition that's only used in his book shouldn't be the basis for an entire article. The page for "tropical fascism" got nuked for the same reason. NorthTension (talk) 03:16, 10 August 2026 (UTC)