Democratic practices remain an ongoing concern in
Participatory Design (PD), with an increasing focus being
directed towards citizens’ roles in formal decision-making
processes. Linking to such concerns, this article explores the
potential of John Dewey’s democratic vision as a political
frame for PD. As a means of pursuing this, we reference an
ongoing Design Innovation research programme, which has,
over the last decade, investigated the potential of PD methods in
community contexts in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Next
to the programme, we also explore an emerging public
participation agenda in Scottish policy-making. Noting some
challenges in relation to the agenda’s implementation, we
propose that design can play a role in helping to realise the
potential which it affords. To illustrate this, we present an
exemplar case drawn from our research programme and, in
doing so, demonstrate how Dewey’s vision allows us to both
rationalise past action and prospect future activity in relation to
policy-making concerns. To conclude, we outline what we see
to be the key value of adopting the Deweyan democratic vision
as a political frame within PD in general.

• https://radar.gsa.ac.uk/7841/
• https://radar.gsa.ac.uk/7852/
• https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ncdn20/1...