In person icon Intersectional Approaches to Democratic Innovations: Building Inclusive, Embedded and Equitable Participatory Spaces

Abstract

Representative democracy is proving unable to address (and at times it even exacerbates) today’s interlinked existential crises (environmental, economic, political and societal). The ensuing crisis of legitimacy of democratic institutions has paved the way to a range of democratic innovations, such as minipublics or participatory budgeting, which try to connect better the voices of everyday people to decision-makers. While these democratic innovations have been praised for fostering public engagement, they still struggle to embed in existing policy environments, as well as the wider public sphere. The design of democratic innovations has for the most part been a top-down affair with a tendency to universalise modes of participation that mostly respond to the expectations and resources of a narrow demographic (e.g., white, educated, middle-class, older), and this can exacerbate existing inequalities and divides in society. This panel draws on theoretical and empirical work to suggest approaches to participation that can help strengthen embeddedness of participatory spaces (Bussu, Bua, Dean and Smith, 2023) and promote more inclusive designs that consider how socio-economic and structural inequalities and intersectional exclusions (Collins, 2019) shape participation patterns. Contributions to the panel rethink democratic innovation designs by starting from the perspectives and experiences of participation of groups that are often marginalised in democratic spaces along class, race, gender, age and abilities lines. The papers test the potential and challenges of approaches that combine arts-based and creative methods online and in person to strengthen intersectional inclusion. The panel explores empirical cases and theoretical perspectives on: • How can we conceptually frame and operationalise intersectionality, according to different research paradigms? • What are the best practices for combining digital and in-person participatory spaces to overcome socio-economic barriers to access, such as digital divides and accessibility challenges for marginalised communities? • How do intersectional approaches to democratic innovations vary across different geographical, socio-economic and political contexts? • What comparative lessons can be drawn about the potential for DI processes to address or exacerbate socio-economic inequalities across diverse settings? • How can art-based participatory models contribute to fostering intersectional equity? By foregrounding understanding of intersectional exclusions and intersectional equity, and the impact of diverse approaches to participatory (co)design, the panel seeks to enrich current DI frameworks and offers pathways for building more inclusive, equitable, and effective democratic processes.

Title	Details
Power in Participatory Processes Through an Intersectional Assemblage Lens	View Paper Details
Implementation of Game- And Play-Like Procedures And Processes to Discuss Refugee & Asylum Policy	View Paper Details
Can Creative Methods Enhance Participation of People with Housing Needs? Lessons from an Arts-Based Pilot from Hungary	View Paper Details
Just Sortition, Communitarian Deliberation: Two Proposals for Embedded Climate Assemblies	View Paper Details
Intersectional Barriers to Participation in Climate Assemblies: A Study of the Brussels and Paris Cases	View Paper Details