omniharmonicDemocratic Confederalism
Democratic confederalism is a governance model based on direct democracy, ecological sustainability, and the liberation of all peoples. Developed theoretically by Murray Bookchin as “libertarian municipalism” and implemented practically in the Rojava revolution in northeastern Syria under the influence of Abdullah Ocalan, it proposes that the fundamental unit of governance should be the municipal assembly — face-to-face democratic bodies where community members directly deliberate and decide.
These municipal assemblies then confederate — linking horizontally with other assemblies to coordinate on shared concerns — without ceding sovereignty to a centralized authority. This creates a governance architecture that embodies subsidiarity: local matters stay local, while regional and inter-regional coordination emerges through voluntary confederation. The model explicitly integrates ecological principles, arguing that the domination of nature and the domination of people share the same root in hierarchical social structures.
Democratic confederalism represents a concrete expression of dual-power strategy, as it builds functioning governance structures that exist alongside and in tension with nation-state systems. It connects to bioregionalism through its emphasis on ecological boundaries as organizing principles, and to participatory-democracy through its insistence on direct rather than representative decision-making. The model has influenced movements worldwide, from the Kurdish freedom movement to municipalist platforms in Barcelona, Jackson (Mississippi), and beyond.