This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, December 24th, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

So-called ungoverned spaces are essentially places where central governments simply do not reach.

It could be hotbeds of terrorism,

or they could simply be places not worth bothering.

Jennifer Kister is author of a New Kato report

the illusion of chaos, why ungoverned spaces aren't ungoverned, and why that matters.

We spoke last week.

So ungoverned spaces is the latest in a, or one of the latest in a range of terms which all apply to what essentially

comprise areas into which the reach of a state or government is limited and or

operate under non-traditional forms of governments.

They aren't under state control.

So this looks a bit confusing from the outside

because you're referring to spaces like the Somali

Hinterlands, which are very sparsely populated,

where there's now been increased concern about sort of mega cities

or feral city areas, which are sort of a jumble of urban slums,

very densely populated.

And the general concern with these is that because there's limited state control or the states are governing in a way that's assessed to be sort of poor governance that they'll shelter or produce violent non-state actors or other threats to America its allies and its interests.

And this term also includes rural North Korea?

It's basically everywhere that you can look on the map where you don't see, it's not, there's not a traditional

nation state operating in that space.

...