by Paloma Caravantes and Emanuela Lombardo
Democratic innovations in institutional politics are processes or institutions aimed at improving the quality of democracy beyond electoral politics. This is done by including the voices, knowledge and experiences of civil society in policy processes (Martínez-Palacios, 2018; della Porta, 2020). But what are feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics? They are actions seeking to transform unequal gender and intersectional hierarchies through promoting intersectional inclusion and participation in both policy content and institutional structures.
In our article in Policy & Politics, we explore this topic and propose a conceptualisation of feminist democratic innovations in local institutional politics. We apply our framework to a laboratory of feminist municipal politics that was Barcelona’s local government from 2015 to 2023 (Cruells and Alfama, 2019). The case of Barcelona offers us an example of a public institution shaped by the struggles of progressive social movements (della Porta and Zamponi, 2022), in which critical feminist actors from institutions and civil society had the opportunity to tailor politics and policymaking.
We identify four types of transformations: (a) transforming knowledge, (b) transforming policymaking and public funding, (c) transforming institutions, and (d) transforming actors’ coalitions. Firstly, knowledge has a prominent role in Barcelona’s gender equality policy, both in terms of the discursive construction of a ‘feminist city’, and as a tool for gender-informed diagnosis and policy solutions. Secondly, the municipality of Barcelona democratises policymaking in terms of inclusion and participation through mainstreaming gender and its intersections, mostly focused on class, as well as using gender-related criteria to assign and distribute public funding. Thirdly, inter-institutional change involves the strengthening of gender equality structures and tools, such as gender impact assessment reports. The fourth feminist democratic transformation is the effort to expand the municipality’s relations with civil society and increase the participation of feminist organisations in policymaking processes.
Critical actors and an enabling political context played a pivotal role in the promotion of these feminist democratic innovations in Barcelona. The transformations were facilitated by (1) top-level political and material support of a self-proclaimed feminist mayor and the party-in-government, (2) the feminist knowledge and expertise of local bureaucrats, and (3) the role of civil society actors in participatory processes and as watchdogs scrutinising municipal work. This also implies that the impact of these feminist democratic innovations is dependent on political will, and the commitment, knowledge, and capacity of institutional and civil society actors.
Our research contributes to conceptualising feminist democratic innovations in the policy and politics of public institutions. It encourages dialogues between scholars, practitioners and citizens interested in democratic governance, social movements, and institutional feminism with the purpose of enriching the practice and theory of democracy. It shows the potential of the feminist project, both in movements and institutions, to advance democratic innovations in policy and politics through encouraging inclusive intersectionality and participatory discourses and practices.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Caravantes, P., & Lombardo, E. (2024). Feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2023D000000009
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