Experiments in Democratic Confederalism: The Rojava Case

Mo Hamza, Lund University (Sweden)

The paper questions whether Rojava’s experiment in Democratic Confederalism—a fusion of direct democracy, gender liberation, and ecological principles inspired by Bookchin and reworked by Öcalan—can be implemented in practice and sustained given the material realities of war, militarisation, resource dependencies (especially hydrocarbons and water), interethnic tensions, and hostile geopolitics. It synthesises scholarship on Rojava’s institutional architecture and practices to highlight significant tensions between theory and practice: militarisation, reliance on oil and informal wartime economies, interethnic distrust, and hostile regional geopolitics. These have limited ambitions for ecological sustainability, economic democracy, and inclusive pluralism. The paper concludes that Rojava illustrates the limits of utopian political theory when faced with wartime political economy, where survival depends on pragmatic compromises that alter its original ideals. Rojava’s experiment provides important lessons for municipal and ecofeminist projects but faces structural and contextual obstacles that may necessitate pragmatic compromises, potentially undermining its radical aims.

This presentation is part of a panel on "Climate Change, Community Governance, and Environmental Justice in Syria: Insights from the 3-year ECO-Syria Project"