Grassroots democracy and local government in Northern Syria: the case of democratic confederalism

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a case study regarding an innovative model of grass-roots democracy, called democratic confederalism, which is currently being implemented in Northern Syria. The difference between democratic confederalism and previous experiments with grass-roots democracy is that its evolutionary pattern aims to include heterogeneous local communities living in the same territories, with the objective of becoming an administrative model for the whole Syrian country, without shattering its national constitution. In fact, the evolution of the political and administrative system and the introduction of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria were specifically aimed at including all ethnicities and not focusing on the Kurdish population only. Following a literature review aimed at defining the theoretical background of democratic confederalism, the case study is presented. Data collection occurred through semi-structured interviews and informal talks with key stakeholders in the Kurdish movement; the findings and main implications of the model are described and analysed.

KEYWORDS:

• Democratic confederalism
• democratic participation
• Kurdish movement
• Syria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An initial step towards legitimation may be represented by the opening of representative offices in seven European countries.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nathalie Colasanti

Nathalie Colasanti is a research fellow at the Faculty of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata. Her main research interests include common goods, social innovation and the sharing economy, with a focus on the public sector. She is a teaching assistant for the course of strategic management.

Rocco Frondizi

Rocco Frondizi is a research fellow at the Faculty of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata. His main research interests include social innovation with a focus on the public sector. He is a teaching assistant for the course of strategic management.

Joyce Liddle

Joyce Liddle is Professor of Public Leadership and Enterprise at the Newcastle Business School, University of Northumbria, UK. Her research interests in city/regional leadership, governance, public innovation/entrepreneurship, partnerships and networks. She has published articles, book chapters and books, and co-edits an annual book series on critical perspectives on international public management.

Marco Meneguzzo

Marco Meneguzzo is Professor of Strategic Management, Nonprofit Management and Public Management at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and Professor of Public Management and Nonprofit at the University of Italian Switzerland. He is the coordinator of the Government and Civil Society Research Group (Department of Management and Law), which runs the MIMAP (Innovation and Management of Public Administration) and the MEMIS (Social Innovation Management) masters degrees, of which he is the scientific director.