Feminist Democratic Design

If democratic design (DD) is offered as a methodology to redress ‘incomplete democratization’ (Saward 2020), we contend that it requires a feminist filter to meet the challenges faced by contemporary democracies. As defined by Michael Saward (2020), democratic design is a problem-driven methodology that identifies design principles and practices that would make a plan for ‘a new sort of thing’.’ In this paper we argue that Saward’s question - ‘how might, or how should, democratic institutions and practices be organized and activated for a given time and place?’ must be refracted through feminist lenses. Only in so doing, we can advance principles and practices that realize intersectional gender equality in and through democratic innovation. Absent feminist democratic design, political equality will not be realized, not least, and indeed especially, because anti-democratic backsliding is intimately tied up with anti-gender ideology and involves anti-feminist acts. This paper introduces and makes the case for feminist democratic design (FDD) to be adopted not only by politics and intersectionality and gender scholars, but by all democracy scholars and practitioners who wish to improve the health of our democracies. The paper provides a rationale and a guide to using FDD in particular places and times. FDD consists of three phases. In (i) design thinking, designers imagine democracy as it should be, by reconsidering core principles, ideals, and norms in a feminist fashion. By re-reading feminist, intersectionality and democratic theories and attending to activist practices, a normative theory of intersectional feminist democracy can be built. In (ii) designing, the designers facilitate the creation of ‘design coalitions’ who create, in feminist and democratic ways, blueprints for new processes and practices, and devices and tools for participation, representation, and decision-making. In (iii) building, the newly designed democratic practices and processes are trialled, with the designers investigating the extent to which new designs deliver experiences of trust, recognition, connection and inclusion, enhanced mobilization, as well as politicians’ responsiveness and accountability; revisions to initial designs and augmented building efforts might well be necessary to realize ideal democratic design thinking in situ. The paper closes with a short consideration of the ‘designed-for’ effects of FDD, showing the methodology’s potential to counter anti-democratic politics and for creating democratic polities that are healthier and more resilient.