Democracy, Inclusion and Intersectionality

This paper focuses on the inclusion of marginalised group in democratic innovations and does so by applying the lenses of intersectionality. I investigate several ways of inclusion practices in modern democratic forums. In order to analyse whether these practices are realising such aim, I investigate the possibility of inclusion of groups which are characterised by an intersectionality of identity categories (c.f. Crenshaw 1991) as opposed to the single identity category. In particular, I am interested in the intersection of underprivileged groups from the perspective of political participation – namely current democratic practices act as inclusion tools for particular groups, usually, by relevant institutional design, facilitation or enclave’s deliberation. I argue that these tools are focused on categories of identity however as separated categories. As such they are not able to act as tools of inclusion for members whose underprivileged position results from them identifying themselves in an intersection of identies. A different logic of inclusion is offered by the project focused on representation of discourses. This tool instead of including people aims at the inclusion of all relevant discourses. In this way, despite not being officially included, all the relevant opinions and perspectives can be included. However, as this paper argues, this tool may be valuable for omitting discourses produced by those who are represented by the intersectionality of categories of identity. As a result, this paper argues for a counterfactual perspective in dealing with inequality in democratic decision-making. Such perspective investigates those who are the least likely to be included a democratic forum and offers an aim of structural reforms instead of the policies of inclusion. There are several contributions of this paper. First, it contributes to the literature on the participatory and deliberative democracy on marginalisation and inclusion. This paper introduces to this considerably large body of literature concept of intersectionality as an analytical and conceptual tool which enables investigating how different social identities affect the way people experience life, advantage or disadvantage and a democratic participation. As such this paper contributes to and complements the literature on democratic inclusion and exclusion , epistemic injustice during deliberation, as well as a role of disability, ethnicity, age, income and gender in democratic decision-making Intersectionality has so far produced a lot of research and debates within the wider social sciences but this perspective has not been yet applied by democratic scholars. This paper fills this gap. Second, this paper aims to provide a practical recommendation of for democratic practitioners by offering an alternative solution for thinking about inclusion and marginalisation in democratic forums and elaborates on its real life implementation. Finally, this paper aims to inspire participatory and deliberative democrats to include perspective of intersectionality in their own, practical and theoretical, research.