A model of self-government in which local assemblies and communes federate into wider councils without a sovereign state, set out by Abdullah Öcalan in 2005 and later adopted by the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria.
In more detail
Öcalan's 2005 Declaration of Democratic Confederalism presented self-governing assemblies as an alternative to the nation-state. Janet Biehl describes it as a Kurdish adaptation of Murray Bookchin's libertarian municipalism, which a PKK assembly saluted in 2006. Umair Muhammad questions whether the PKK left nationalism behind, and the Rojava Information Center itself notes gaps between theory and practice. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria used the label for its commune-and-council system.