Women's participation in democratic innovation apparatuses: the case of the autonomous region of the Basque country, Spain

• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1600
• Author: Jone Martinez Palacios,Zuriñe Rodriguez Lara,Igor Ahedo Gurrutxaga

■Academic Paper

Women’s participation in democratic

innovation apparatuses: the case of the

autonomous region of the Basque country,

Spain

Jone Martinez Palacios*, Igor Ahedo Gurrutxaga and

Zuriñe Rodriguez Lara

Department of Political Science and Administration, University Of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain

Since 1990, many democratic regimes have seen an increasing number of democratic innovation apparatuses that

have been the subject of many of the reflections of democratic theory. Furthermore, the notion of participation has

been a priority since the early stages of the institutionalisation of gender studies. Many analyses of the presence

and the voice of women in representative spaces and in social movements have been made. However, both areas of

study seem to have developed in parallel, giving rise to a knowledge gap when it comes to the participation of women

in public affairs by the democratic innovation apparatuses.

This article is situated at the intersection of those areas. It analyses the relationship between women’s participation and

the extension of the public sphere in terms of obstacles. Based on the analysis of the participatory biographies of 42

women and six men who participate in 15 democratic innovation apparatuses implemented between 1978 and 2014

in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain), five discussion groups and two direct observations, the ob-

stacles met by the women when carrying out their participatory project in those governance apparatuses are identified.

The article concludes by highlighting the currency of the public versus private and reason versus emotion categories to

explain the objectivized and incorporated structure of the obstacles. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

In those societies that fall between the stratified and

‘egalitarian, multicultural societies’(Fraser, 1997),

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two democratizing trends are found together, which

broaden the principlesof representative democracies.

The first trend is related to the significant increase

in political-institutional measures aimed at guaran-

teeing the presence and quality of women’s partici-

pation in spaces for political representation. Today,

there are more women than in former decades in

governments, parliaments and bodies of political

representation in most of the world. Thames and

Williams (2013:1) say that ‘We are currently

experiencing the greatest level of women’s political

representation the world has ever seen.’Focussing

on Europe, a gradual increase in the number of

women in national parliaments can be seen: in

2008, the average presence of women was 23.6%,

and in 2013, it was 25.6% (European Parliament,

2013).

*Correspondence to: Jone Martinez Palacios, Political Science and

of The Administration, University Of Basque Country, Barrio

Sarriena S/N, Bilbao, 48940, Spain.

E-mail: jone.martinez@ehu.eus

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These are ‘nonstratified societies, societies whose basic frame-

work does not generate unequal social groups in structural rela-

tions of dominance and subordination. Egalitarian societies,

therefore, are classless societies without gender or racial divisions

of labour.’(Fraser,1960: 118)

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 16 Number 4 pp 384–393 (2016)

Published online 8 February 2016 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1600

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.