Spatial Planning and Territorial Governance of Micro-States and Unconventional Administrative Territories

Dear Colleagues,

Since the dawn of time, humans have tried to govern spaces and manage their transformation. This usually occurs through informal practices or by establishing sophisticated institutional technologies based on clear and stable administrative arrangements and subdivisions. While the exploration of spatial planning and territorial governance of “consolidated states” are well documented, the literature lacks well-informed recent contributions that deal with the spatial planning and territorial governance of small and micro-states, unconventional territories, post-colonial and protectorate countries, and special status territories. By small or micro-states, we mean states with a limited territorial surface (e.g., Vatican City, Singapore, Sao Tome and Principe, and Monaco) and their own spatial planning system. By unconventional territories, we refer to realities such as: (i) non-self-government territories (as defined by the UN and including Gibraltar, Greenland, Cayman Islands, etc.); (ii) autonomous areas created by external agreements (e.g., Hong Kong, Macao, Northern Ireland, Palestinian National Authority, Kosovo, etc.); (iii) territories defined by internal statutes (e.g., the autonomous prefectures in China, the autonomous republic of Georgia, special regions in Indonesia, etc.) and autonomous sub-national regions (e.g., the comunidad autónoma in Spain, the entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the autonomous province in Serbia, etc.). In addition to those mentioned, we invite authors to present contributions on enclaves or semi-enclave territories such as Kaliningrad, Brunei, Gambia, and many others. 

By post-colonial and protectorate countries, we refer to those countries which have experienced colonialism and forms of protectorate in the previous centuries that might have impacted their way of spatial administration and land use. Finally, by special status territories, we refer to those characterized by ethnic-based practices, such as indigenous and historical informal cross-border territories. In more detail, by indigenous territories, we mean those experiences that show examples of planning control based on an ancestral understanding of space and a sense of belonging. By historical informal cross-border territories, we mean those historically interlinked territories which are administratively divided due to political contingencies (e.g., divided cities, border territories, consolidated conflict areas, and peripheral areas).

This Special Issue aims to collect contributions on spatial planning and territorial governance experiences in these realities, aiming to fill the gap and enrich the international literature on them and related issues.

We invite authors to contribute with evidence-based and comparative papers on spatial planning systems, territorial governance, land use planning, indigenous planning, cross-border community planning practices, etc.

Dr. Erblin Berisha
Dr. Alys Solly
Guest Editors

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• spatial planning
• spatial planning systems
• territorial governance
• indigenous planning
• cross-border spatial planning
• micro-states
• unconventional territories
• post-colonial spatial planning
• post-protectorate spatial planning