This paper presents an approach using self-organizing multi-agent systems to solve distributed constraint satisfaction problems (DCSP), which concerns distribution among agents which task is to assign personal variables to values with respect with known constraints. Agents only know their variables and the constraints affecting them, and have to negotiate to find a collective solution. The proposed approach defines cooperative self-organization as the process leading the collective to the solution: agents can change the organization by their own decision to improve the state of the system. This work is illustrated on distributed frequency assignment, a classical constraint-based problem.