Uncontrolled Territories in the Contemporary World: Theory, Genesis, Types and Dynamics

Abstract

The uncontrolled territories (UT) attract the attention of an increasing number of researchers; however, most publications are devoted to only one type of UTs – unrecognized states. The objective of this paper is to assess and analyze changes in territory and population of all UTs in different macro-regions of the world through 2006–2010 and 2014–2019. Five main directions of studies of such territories are identified and characterized. The authors distinguish several types and patterns of territorial control, propose a typology of UTs and consider in detail the methodology and difficulties of creating a corresponding database. The aggravation of the geopolit ical situation in the second decade of the 21th century led to an increase in the number of international conflicts and in the area and population of UTs in Asia, Africa and Europe. The de facto secession largely affected the vast zones of problematic statehood in Asia and Africa, where according to the authors’ estimates, about 45 million and 138 million people live, respectively. The emergence of UTs is a special case of the fragmentation of the political space at different territorial levels – a consequence of the turbulent transformation of the world geopolitical order.

Economic Development as a Challenge for “De Facto States”: Post-Conflict Dynamics and Perspectives in South Ossetia

“…At the same time, along with recognized sovereign states, a large number of polities that do not have international recognition, but steadily control their own territory, have formed (Popov, 2015). At one pole of this heterogeneous group, there are at least 40 polities with extremely mobile borders, which are usually classified as uncontrolled territories (Sebentsov and Kolosov, 2012;Kolosov et al, 2021), at the other pole there are 13 "de facto states" with most of the hallmarks of a sovereign state, with the exception of broad international recognition (Zayats, 2020). There are six such entities in the post-Soviet space, two of which, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, belong to the category of partially recognized states.…”