Abstract

The modern academy has historically been shaped in line with the needs of the nation-state, the capitalist economy, and a positivist understanding of science. This structure has largely tied knowledge production to the reproduction of power relations and has distanced academic activity from social practice and ethical responsibility. In the Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization and the Manifesto for Peace and a Democratic Society, Abdullah Öcalan critiques this academic model as the knowledge regime of capitalist modernity and develops an alternative understanding of knowledge and academia on the basis of the perspective of democratic modernity.
This article aims to discuss how academies should be structured within Öcalan’s theoretical approach and which epistemological, ethical, and methodological principles academic work should be grounded in.

Keywords: Democratic modernity, academy, knowledge regime, epistemology, democratic society

1. Introduction

Knowledge production has not, historically, been an activity independent of social and political contexts. Academic institutions have taken shape together with the power relations, economic structures, and dominant modes of thought of the periods in which they emerged. The modern university model developed, especially from the nineteenth century onward, in parallel with the institutionalization of the nation-state, capitalist relations of production, and a positivist conception of science. In this process, academia transformed from a critical field into a structure that contributes to the reproduction of the existing social order.
 From the perspective of Abdullah Öcalan’s democratic modernity approach, academia is addressed not only as an institutional structure but also as a knowledge regime and a form of mentality. According to Öcalan, capitalist modernity detached knowledge from society and nature and placed it in the service of power; this weakened the emancipatory potential of academic knowledge. For this reason, rethinking academia emerges as a fundamental issue for the construction of a democratic society.

2. Capitalist Modernity and the Crisis of Academic Knowledge

Capitalist modernity rests on an epistemology that objectifies knowledge and fragments it. The positivist understanding of science reduces social reality to measurable, classifiable, and controllable elements. While this approach turns academic knowledge into technical expertise, it also removes it from its ethical and political context.
 According to Öcalan, this process has weakened knowledge’s capacity to produce truth and has turned academia into an ideological apparatus of power (Öcalan, 2011). Academic studies have often been abstracted from social problems, have lost their interdisciplinary connections, and have been reduced to a mode of production centered on careers and titles. In this sense, the academic crisis is not only methodological but also a crisis of social meaning.

3. Conceptual Literature Review

Studies on academia and knowledge production have largely taken shape around the axes of modernity, power, and epistemology. Beginning in the twentieth century, the assumption that knowledge is neutral and objective has been seriously questioned in the social sciences. This questioning has shown that academic knowledge cannot be treated as independent of social, political, and historical contexts.

3.1. Modernity, Knowledge, and Power

The institutional form of modern academia is closely linked to Enlightenment thought and the positivist understanding of science. Within this framework, knowledge has been produced through a method that treats nature and society as controllable objects. In critical theory, this understanding has been evaluated as a claim of neutrality that renders invisible the relationship between knowledge and power.
 Michel Foucault questioned the neutrality claim of modern academia through his work centering the relationship between knowledge and power. For Foucault, knowledge is not an independent domain of truth positioned outside power; it is a practice produced within power relations and circulated through them (Foucault, 1977). This approach makes it possible to address academia not only as an institution that produces knowledge, but also as a field where power is reproduced.

3.2. Critical Epistemology and Feminist Theory of Knowledge

The modern claim to universality and objectivity has also been comprehensively criticized by feminist epistemology. Feminist theorists have argued that the social position of the subject producing knowledge directly shapes the content of that knowledge. Sandra Harding’s approach of “situated knowledge” reveals that a male-centered understanding of science is imposed as a universal norm (Harding, 1986). Donna Haraway, likewise, argues that knowledge is always produced from a specific position and that the claim to a “god’s-eye view” is scientifically untenable (Haraway, 1988).
 These approaches have weakened the neutrality claim of academic knowledge and strengthened the idea that knowledge production carries ethical and political responsibility.

3.3. Democratic Modernity and Öcalan’s Position in the Literature

A distinctive approach that intersects with this critical literature yet also diverges from it is the paradigm of democratic modernity developed by Abdullah Öcalan. Öcalan addresses the problem of knowledge not only at an epistemological level, but within a comprehensive framework together with relations of history, power, gender, and ecology (Öcalan, 2011; 2012). The democratic modernity approach not only critiques academia, but also redefines it as a field capable of assuming a transformative role in the construction of a democratic society.

4. Structural Principles of Democratic Academies

4.1. Social Centeredness

From the perspective of democratic modernity, academia cannot be a sphere of expertise detached from society. Academic knowledge must remain in continuous interaction with the experiences of local communities, communes, and democratic forms of organization. This approach transforms academia from a monopoly on knowledge into a social field of learning.

4.2. An Interdisciplinary Approach

Öcalan evaluates the rigid separation of knowledge along disciplinary lines as a result of capitalist modernity. In democratic academies, history, sociology, philosophy, ecology, and politics should not be treated as independent fields but addressed within a holistic framework of social analysis.

4.3. Anti-Hierarchical Institutionalization

In traditional academia, titles and status create a hierarchical power relation over knowledge. In the democratic academy model, teaching and learning processes are constructed as mutual and collective. Academic authority derives not from institutional hierarchy but from collective knowledge production.

4.4. The Women’s Freedom Paradigm

In Öcalan’s theoretical framework, women’s freedom is a fundamental component of social freedom. For this reason, academic knowledge production must interrogate male-centered epistemology. In this context, Jineology is evaluated not merely as a sub-discipline but as a critical perspective in knowledge production (Öcalan, 2016).

5. Academic Work Practices in the Democratic Academy

From the perspective of democratic modernity, academic work is not limited to theoretical production alone. Academic knowledge must connect with social practice, relate local experiences to universal debates, and carry ethical responsibility. This approach removes academic activity from a purely technical domain of expertise and makes it part of processes of social transformation.

6. Conclusion

Abdullah Öcalan’s democratic modernity approach positions academia as an effective actor in the construction of a democratic society by detaching it from the knowledge regime of capitalist modernity. From this perspective, academies must be rethought as institutions integrated with society, anti-hierarchical, interdisciplinary, and grounded in ethics. Academic knowledge, in turn, should be considered not as a means of producing careers and power, but as an instrument of the search for truth and democratic social transformation.

References (APA 7)

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Pantheon Books.
Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Cornell University Press.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Öcalan, A. (2010). Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings (Vol. 1). Mezopotamya Yayınları.
Öcalan, A. (2011). Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: Capitalist Civilization (Vol. 2). Mezopotamya Yayınları.
Öcalan, A. (2012). Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: Sociology of Freedom (Vol. 3). Mezopotamya Yayınları.
Öcalan, A. (2013). Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: Crisis of Civilization in the Middle East and the Solution of Democratic Civilization (Vol. 4). Mezopotamya Yayınları.
Öcalan, A. (2016). Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: The Kurdish Question and the Solution of the Democratic Nation (Vol. 5). Mezopotamya Yayınları.
Öcalan, A. (n.d.). Manifesto for Peace and a Democratic Society. Unpublished manuscript.

12.12.2025
AZAD BADIKÎ