Atlas / Organisations / Democratic Confederalism
Democratic Confederalism
Rojava, AANES · 2012– · North-east Syria · Libertarian Socialist · Held state power · coding confidence low
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Stateless democracy through local communes, gender parity by statute, and ethnic co-existence in place of a nation-state.
Economic model
Cooperatives, communal land, and oil revenue administered by regional councils.
Organisation of powers
Nested commune, neighbourhood, district and regional councils with co-chair gender quotas — alongside a dominant armed party.
Reading note
Derived from a Marxist-Leninist party that adopted the writings of an American anarchist. Coded at low confidence because independent reporting is limited.
Check a claim about Democratic Confederalism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −07
Coded −7: cooperatives and communal land with regionally administered oil revenue.
- ScholarshipAgricultural and service cooperatives operate alongside a regulated private sector.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored −08
Coded −8: gender parity written into the administrative structure.
- Programme textEvery administrative body has co-chairs of different genders and a 40% minimum quota.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −03
Coded −3 with low confidence: nested councils alongside a dominant armed party.
- ScholarshipThe social contract establishes commune, district and regional councils; the PYD holds decisive military power.
SC · Scale of decision · scored −08
Coded −8: the commune as the primary unit of decision.
- Programme textDemocratic confederalism explicitly rejects the nation state as the unit of government.
ID · Rule of membership · scored −03
Coded −3: a multi-ethnic administration written into the social contract.
- Programme textThe social contract recognises Kurdish, Arab, Syriac and Armenian communities as constituent.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +04
Coded +4: an armed administration created in a civil war.
- Documented act or statuteThe administration emerged from the withdrawal of Syrian government forces in 2012.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromAnarcho-Communism
A Marxist-Leninist party adopted Murray Bookchin's writings and rebuilt itself around them.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Kurdish Democratic Movement5.2
- Degrowth5.5
- The Diggers6.2
- Sans-culottes6.3
- Black Panther Party6.6
- Socialist Revolutionaries6.7
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.