Does intersectionality matter to citizen participation? Limits and experiments in bureaucratic contexts

Purpose This article explores the adoption of intersectionality in participatory democracy policy. Design/methodology/approach This objective is supported by the content analysis of multi-level legal instruments regulating 19 Women's Participation Boards in Spain, between 1996 and 2020. The article interprets the results by drawing on a Bourdieu-inspired feminist approach of “neoliberal bureaucratisation” (Hibou, 2012) and “intersectional disposition” (May, 2015). Findings Firstly, the article identifies three tendencies of bureaucratic rationality in participatory democracy policies that pose a significant obstacle to adopt an intersectional approach: the ordered and utilitarian approach to participation, mimetic action and a tendency to channel women's diversity through representation quotas. Secondly, an intersectional approach to citizen participation should experiment with a counter-bureaucratic habitus, a form of institutional work that resists the habitus dominating the bureaucratic field. Originality/value This article has applied value as it offers insights aimed at incorporating intersectionality within participatory democracy policies not only as a discourse, but also as a practice. The originality of the article resides in its adoption of intersectionality as a disposition – a particular orientation to institutional work, that goes beyond the common view of intersectionality as a complex form of inequality. This angle allows for thinking about how to put intersectionality into practice in reflexive and creative ways. Finally, the analysis lies in a social justice framework concerned with the neoliberal turn which also affects participatory democracy policies, undermining the principles of diversity and inclusion.