English

Alternative forms

• pseudo-state

Noun

pseudostate ‎(plural pseudostates)

1. (politics) A geopolitical entity which has some of the trappings of an independently-governed country or territory, but which lacks real independence and is not recognized as a self-governing political entity by the international community of nations.
   • 1994 July 29, Bill Keller, "Back to the Land: South African Blacks Walk a Legal and Economic Maze," New York Times (retrieved 19 Aug 2014):

     In 1975 the state decreed that the Mfengu were really Xhosa, and that their traditional "homeland" was 300 miles away, in a Xhosa pseudostate called Ciskei.

   • 2013 Sept. 23, Matt Steinglass, "Democracy in America: Rebels and tyrants," Economist (retrieved 19 Aug 2014):

     For Iran, Syria is a counterweight to any Sunni resurgence in Iraq, as well as the conduit to Hizbullah, its client Shiite pseudo-state in Lebanon.