Gender mainstreaming as democratic innovation

Paloma Caravantes and Emanuela Lombardo

Chapter Spotlight 4 in Research Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming, 2026, pp 181-185 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Feminist democratic innovations in institutional politics are “processes or institutions” aimed at improving the quality of democracy by reimagining governance through more intersectionally inclusive and participatory policies and politics. Gender mainstreaming can act as feminist democratic innovation when it questions existing policy paradigms to address the claims, rights, and knowledge of formerly excluded or marginalised gender subjects and involves them in policy processes. This includes challenging the idea that policies are gender-neutral, integrating feminist knowledge into administrative processes such as budgeting and policy impact assessment, transforming institutional structures through equality machinery, and promoting transparency and accountability towards civil society. A window-dressing implementation, resistance in the policy process, the bureaucratisation and depoliticisation of the feminist project, and the prioritisation of gender over other intersecting structures of discrimination limit its capacity to act as a democratic innovation. Promising feminist democratic innovations in gender mainstreaming and intersectionality are illustrated with local cases in Spain.

Keywords: Gender Mainstreaming; Intersectionality Mainstreaming; Feminist Democratic Innovations; Intersectional Inclusion; Equitable Participation; Civil Society (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035353415
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035353422.00028 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:24172_18

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().