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

Colasanti, Nathalie, Frondizi, Rocco, Liddle, Joyce and Meneguzzo, Marco (2018) Grassroots democracy and local government in Northern Syria: the case of democratic confederalism. Local Government Studies, 44 (6). pp. 807-825. ISSN 0300-3930

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Democratic confederalism, democratic participation, Kurdish movement, Syria
Subjects:	L900 Others in Social studies
Department:	Faculties > Business and Law > Newcastle Business School
Depositing User:	Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2019 15:21
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2019 10:03
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/37705

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