Towards Intersectional Democratic Innovations

Abstract

While scholarship on intersectionality has emphasised the need to go beyond single categories of identity, like gender or race, intersectionality has not been considered to date within the literature on democratic innovations, even though enhancing inclusion is a key aim of such institutions. This article overcomes this gap. It analyses tools of inclusion within democratic innovations and argues they are not responsive to intersectionality claims. This article shows that current democratic innovations are explicitly exclusionary towards the groups which need the attention of the democratic scholars the most. To address this problem, this article argues for a move away from advocating for single or ‘one-off’ acts of inclusion and towards a more direct focus on facilitating leadership of the disempowered and diversification of the contexts of democratic innovations. Such changes can increase the sensitivity of democratic innovations but can also facilitate a wider social change.