Öcalan’s Vision of ‘Democratic Society’

In a historic statement made in February 2025, titled Call for Peace and Democratic Society, Abdullah Öcalan called on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to dissolve itself. Rejecting all nationalist-based solutions, he instead emphasized the vision of a ‘democratic society.’

Influenced by the Marxist-Leninist concept of self-determination, the PKK, under the leadership of Öcalan, was initially founded to fight for the Kurdish people’s right to create their own nation-state. Already in the 1990s, the PKK began shifting its demand from full independence toward a more federal or autonomous solution within the Turkish state. Beyond territorial arrangements within state borders, the movement has since developed and circulated its broader vision for a regional and global struggle to build a ‘free life’ against ‘capitalist modernity.’

This peace initiative is the fourth of its kind between the PKK and the Turkish state. In 1993, Öcalan declared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by a dialogue with former President Turgut Özal. In the negotiations known as the Oslo Talks between the PKK and the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT), which officially took place from 2008 to 2011, the demands—shaped by Öcalan’s prison writings—centered around ‘democratic autonomy’ based on ‘democratic confederalism’. In the 2013–2015 peace process, Öcalan’s model for a solution was similarly based on this framework.

This approach may reflect a deliberate effort to avoid confrontational language, to not appear separatist or pose a threat to state sovereignty

However, during the current peace process, Öcalan’s letters and statements, whose wording and circulation are strictly controlled by the Turkish state, make no explicit reference to the concept of autonomy. This approach may reflect a deliberate effort to avoid confrontational language, to not appear separatist or pose a threat to state sovereignty. Now, most significantly, Öcalan’s sole demand—as stated in his February declaration—is the building of a ‘democratic society.’ But what does this actually mean?

Understanding ‘Democratic Society’

In the February statement, Öcalan did not explicitly define what he means by ‘democratic society’. To many, it remains an abstract term; as a result, many Kurds on social media have criticized the statement for the absence of concrete demands for Kurdish rights or any territorial autonomous structures. To fully comprehend this terminology, then, one requires a grasp of Öcalan’s definition of democracy.

The very specific notion of ‘democratic society’ first appeared two decades ago in Öcalan’s book Beyond State, Violence and Power, originally published in 2004. However, as early as 2003, one could already find references to a ‘democratic and ecological society’ in his book The Defense of the Free Human. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Öcalan diagnosed the failure of real socialism to establish a genuinely democratic project. To prevent the PKK from repeating the same mistakes—given that it had been structured on the same methodological and philosophical foundations as the Soviet model (Marxism-Leninism)—in the 1990s, Öcalan began to emphasize the question of democracy and the empowerment of people through popular councils. This quest deepened during his imprisonment, enriched by his readings of anarchism (especially the works of Murray Bookchin) and libertarian Marxism, gradually evolving into a vision of communal/radical democracy

… real democracy exists outside the state and is often suppressed by both liberal and socialist regimes.

In the fifth volume of his Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization, titled The Kurdish Issue and the Democratic Nation Solution: Defending the Kurds from Cultural Genocide, Öcalan proposes a radical rethinking of democracy. He contrasts state-centered liberal democracy under capitalism with a broader, grassroots democratic model based on local and communal self-administration. He argues that real democracy exists outside the state and is often suppressed by both liberal and socialist regimes. The state, he claims, uses democracy as a façade, reducing the people to a depoliticized mass. To counter state control and populist abuse, he advocates democratic self-administration. In this sense, society becomes democratic when all citizens are actively involved in making decisions about the daily affairs they face and are able to fully express their social and political identities. Öcalan’s intellectual trajectory can be defined as a quest to rethink democracy as a way to transfer decision-making power to the people without the mediation of the state.

In the current process, Öcalan advocates for local democracy as one foundation of democratic society. For him, local democracy is not about demanding a larger share of power from the state but about establishing clear boundaries that limit the state’s interference in local affairs. Local democracy is a way to organize society in a way that enables communities to have the autonomy to govern themselves in matters that directly affect their daily lives.

The Core of Democratic Society

…inherently anti-capitalist, remaining participatory, pluralistic, and free.

In Sociology of Freedom, the third volume of Manifesto for Democratic Civilization, Öcalan maintains that democratic society means a moral and political society where people live by shared ethics and take an active role in shaping their lives. According to him, values like happiness, goodness, freedom and equality are not abstract ideals but the foundation of a meaningful, participatory life. Capitalist modernity, Öcalan argues, destroys this foundation by replacing politics with bureaucracy and morality with laws that serve power, creating a controlled, lifeless society that eliminates diversity and meaning. In practice, liberalism leads to the isolation of individuals and the empowerment of elites—deepening inequality and domination—even as it claims to defend freedom and democracy. Under capitalism, law no longer reflects shared morality but serves profit. This results in environmental destruction and social collapse. True politics—what Öcalan describes as collective decision and action—becomes replaced by administrative bureaucracy by the nation-state. In contrast, democratic society resists domination and all forms of exploitation. It is inherently anti-capitalist, remaining participatory, pluralistic, and free.

Öcalan conceives democratic society as one in which diverse cultural, ethnic, and political identities coexist freely, without forced assimilation. Unlike the nation-state, which imposes uniformity, a democratic society embraces diversity as a source of strength, beauty, and tolerance. Öcalan argues that true freedom and equality must be rooted in this diversity—not in illusions offered by nation-states that ultimately and inevitably serve capital and power. His proposal for a true, democratic society would be sustained through grassroots democratic politics and protected by collective self-defence.

Democratic society is built upon extensive social networks and grassroots organizations. These consist of municipal movements, communes, cooperatives, civil society groups, and organizations focusing, for instance, on women’s freedom, ecological causes, and youth autonomy. Democratic political parties and alliances play a role in providing ideological and administrative coordination, which is vital for the development of such a society. The party which functions in the democratic society like The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) will not only be like traditional parties, practicing politics in the statecraft sphere; rather, it will be a bridge between grassroots and communal politics and the state.

People’s congresses, according to Öcalan, serve as the highest expression of democratic society, ensuring political representation and decision-making while maintaining independence from the state. They are tasked with overseeing political, legal, social, economic, and cultural needs, all while prioritizing local democracy.

Democratic society is infused with, yet not confined to, new content: ecology, gender liberation, pluralism, and communalism

The universality of democratic society does not erase particular identities.  His concept of the democratic nation captures how different particular identities can freely express themselves. Democratic nation stands in opposition to the homogenized nation-state, which accepts only one nation or identity.  Democartic soecity challenges top-down, state-centric notions of democracy by proposing a new universalism grounded in the lived experiences of oppressed groups—Kurds, women, and other marginalized communities. Democratic society is infused with, yet not confined to, new content: ecology, gender liberation, pluralism, and communalism. Öcalan’s shift from nationalism to democratic society marks a movement from the particular to the singular. The particular operates within existing categories—nation, ethnicity, religion—while the singular breaks from these frameworks and opens the possibility for something new. Öcalan refuses to define the Kurdish struggle through fixed identities or the pursuit of a state. Instead, he advances a universal political vision that includes all—beyond borders, beyond ethnic essentialism.

The Role of the State: Democratic Republic?

Despite the harsh criticism of the state and the strong tendencies of anarchist and communalist thought in Öcalan’s thinking, he cannot deny the reality of the state’s existence, not to mention being imprisoned by the state and engaging in negotiations with it. Building democratic society goes hand in hand with the Turkish state’s transformation at the constitutional and legal level—abandoning its authoritarian measures and opening more space for forms of direct, local governance. Öcalan dubs this process the democratization of the state in the form of a democratic republic, an idea he outlined in his early prison writings in 2001. This process is crucial, for without it, any attempt to establish a democratic society or any form of self-administration will be met with the brutal violence and oppression of the state. Memories of the Turkish state’s heavy military and legal repression in response to the declaration of self-rule by municipalities and activists in Bakur (northern Kurdistan), especially in 2016, remain vivid.

Nation-states, built on dominant identities, lead to exclusion and assimilation, while democratic republics embrace pluralism and diversity

Öcalan argues that a republic need not be a nation-state—and to be democratic, it must reject any foundation in a single ethnicity, religion, or ideology. Nation-states, built on dominant identities, lead to exclusion and assimilation, while democratic republics embrace pluralism and diversity. Öcalan sees the nation-state and democracy as fundamentally incompatible. Instead, he envisions the republic as an inclusive legal structure that guarantees equal rights for all citizens, while providing basic infrastructure and services. To achieve this, the republic must remain secular, socially just, and free from ethnic or religious definitions.

Central to this democratization process is constitutional reform. Öcalan believes that a democratic constitution is key to bridging the gap between the state and democratic society. Within this framework, he argues, individual rights and freedoms have the potential to thrive. Without it, people are left exposed to unchecked state power. A democratic constitution, for Öcalan, ensures the state becomes a source of shared knowledge and experience, focused on solving problems rather than causing them. It is what holds society and the state together, keeping the state both functional and truly democratic.

Öcalan argues that a democratic solution requires both republican institutions (such as the state and its laws) and democratic society institutions (like communes, councils, cooperatives, or grassroots organizations) to coexist peacefully. These two realms—state structures and bottom-up democratic practices—should not cancel each other out but instead find balance through mutual respect and reconciliation, as well as struggle, where necessary. This vision of coexistence forms the core of the peace project Öcalan has been developing in dialogue with the Turkish state. 

His approach aims not only to resolve identity-based issues such as cultural and social oppression but also to go beyond them by transforming the overall structure of both society and the state

Perhaps this is the most philosophical and practical challenge Öcalan faces: this dual strategy—working both within and beyond the state—reveals a core tension in his thought. To what extent would the state allow the decentralization of power beyond its center?

In sum, Öcalan is working on two fronts: the societal and stateless level (democratic society) and the state level (democratic republic). His approach aims not only to resolve identity-based issues such as cultural and social oppression but also to go beyond them by transforming the overall structure of both society and the state. He seeks to push both toward embracing  a more radical notion of democracy and creating political spaces where all citizens are active, engaged, and able to have a say in their lives and determine how to live freely. However, the integration of democratic society and the democratic republic (the state) will not be free of contradictions and tensions. After all, this might be what peace is about: opening the door to contradictions that will form the basis of the political struggle.