Federalization as a Mean to Resolve Conflicts in the Middle East. The Case of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria

Cezary Błaszczyk

Abstract


The article is devoted to the federal system in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (North and East Syria), or the so-called Rojava. The case of this system is for many reasons special: on the one hand, it realizes the concept of ethnofederalism; on the other hand, it realizes the doctrine of democratic confederalism, i.e. political thought of Abdullah Öcalan. Democratic confederalism, referring largely to the communalism and municipalism of Murray Bookchin, advocates the implementation of a new order in the Middle East, in which various self-administrating ethnic and religious communities could co-exist in a confederal network based on the principles of participatory democracy, legal pluralism, federalism, equality of women and men, ecology and the social economy. According to its proponents, it leads to peace: first in Syria and later in the entire Middle East.


Keywords


Rojava; Abdullah Öcalan; Murray Bookchin; democratic confederalism; federalism

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/g.2019.66.2.21-40
Date of publication: 2019-08-19 13:10:28
Date of submission: 2018-10-24 01:44:06


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