Integrating Gender Perspectives in Participation to Guide Changes in Urban Planning in Serbia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is important to have articles on gender in planning from the former socialist countries and I warmly congratulate you for carrying out the task. I also liked very much the choice of the different case studies. However, the design of the article is not sufficiently structured. The introduction should have a clear research problem, theoretical concepts and aim. The methodology is not clearly sufficiently described comprising research questions and methods  ((those of data gathering, analysis and interpretation). The results should answer the research questions and it would be interesting to have some concrete substantial examples of the case studies, not just generalities.

The conclusions are too much ´wishful thinking`, as a few workshops hardly have a long-lasting impact.  The list of references looks good, but I would add two more articles: 

Damyanovic, D., Reinwald, F., & Weikmann, A. (2013) Manual for gender mainstreaming in urban planning and urban development. Vienna: Urban Development and Planning.

Horelli, L. & Wallin, S.  (2024) Civic Engagement in Urban Planning and Development ', Land, vol. 13, no. 9, 1446 . https://doi.org/10.3390/land13091446

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English language should be improved, as there are several mistakes in the grammar.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper aims to address the inclusion of gender perspectives in planning processes, which is an extremely timely topic, especially within global turbulences that are affecting women globally. It builds on a case study from planning a public space in Belgrade with UN Women. Its purpose is to develop planning processes in a more inclusive and equitable manner by integrating input from gender perspectives, specifically women. Integrating gender perspectives would ensure participation in decision making and attention to the needs of the care economy, which require more emphasis on ‘safety, affordability, accessibility, and a sense of belonging’ in urban spaces as stated by the authors. These considerations vary across European countries, and are less considered in the case of Serbia, which is presented in this paper, through the case of involving diverse planning practitioners and NGOs in a workshop focusing on four public space cases in Serbia.

The paper provides an interesting and important contribution on the topics of inclusion, participation, and equity. To make this contribution more valuable beyond the context of the workshop, some suggestions on the literature review, presentation of the methodology, analysis of findings and discussion are given.

The paper focuses on the importance of participatory approaches in enabling knowledge sharing and integration in planning processes, for a successful inclusion of gender needs. However, the paper indicates that European planning has broadly been driven by prioritizing investment, which could marginalize the considerations of care economy, safety, accessibility, and sense of belonging that are important at the local scale and everyday life basis. The authors highlight one obstacle, which is the lack of tools for integrating gender perspectives. Here the authors indicate that one advantage of former socialist countries is their attention to welfare, which could be used as a basis to support care economies within a neoliberal market dominance. The authors provide a clear description of how participation in planning occurs in Serbia, and modifications following EU practices, and has been supported by bottom approaches demanding more participation in planning following a decline in the provision or maintenance of social and cultural infrastructure. In the Serbian case, a legal framework to support gender equality was set in place, which forms the foundation for further developing tools for gender integration in planning processes. Gender mainstreaming and budgeting are part of the requirements by local authorities, yet this framework was suspended in 2024 for legislative reasons. The authors highlight this core challenge, which relates to legislation, and amendments necessary to integrate gender participation legally within the planning system. This consideration applies not only to Serbia but also other contexts. The paper’s main contribution is that it indicates how the limitation of modifying the national legislative framework in terms of gender integration could be overcome at the level of planning policy and practice, while allowing time for the larger framework to be developed and implemented. The paper builds on the perspectives of planning practitioners to identify gaps and a leeway where a deliberative planning process could be achieved to support more inclusive planning decisions. However, in the literature review section, there are limited references on communicative and deliberative planning processes.

 

Some suggested references include:

 

·       Beauvais, E., & Warren, M. E. (2019). What can deliberative mini‐publics contribute to democratic systems?. European Journal of Political Research, 58(3), 893-914.

 

·       Bua, A., & Escobar, O. (2018). Participatory-deliberative processes and public policy agendas: lessons for policy and practice. Policy Design and Practice, 1(2), 126-140.

 

·       Calderon, C., & Westin, M. (2021). Understanding context and its influence on collaborative planning processes: a contribution to communicative planning theory. International Planning Studies, 26(1), 14-27.

 

·       Ercan, S. A., Hendriks, C. M., & Dryzek, J. S. (2019). Public deliberation in an era of communicative plenty. Policy & politics, 47(1), 19-35.

 

·       Mendonça, R. F., Ercan, S. A., & Asenbaum, H. (2022). More than words: A multidimensional approach to deliberative democracy. Political Studies, 70(1), 153-172.

 

·       Westin, M. (2022). The framing of power in communicative planning theory: Analysing the work of John Forester, Patsy Healey and Judith Innes. Planning Theory, 21(2), 132-154.

 

The conceptual framework for the paper requires further elaboration to support the analysis of the empirical work. The paper could benefit from expanding the literature review further to include deliberative planning methods, scrutinise the benefits and limitations of participation, and assess applicability within the specificities of the Serbian context in more detail.

 

The methodology refers to ethnography as a method (later focus groups, interviews, observations, and content analysis are mentioned – so is it rather a qualitative methodology with focus groups, surveys, document analysis – a point for the authors to consider), without further information on the duration of the workshops and their setting, how participants were selected (perhaps move the section starting on line 181 as it explains their selection process), why numbers varied in each of the five workshops, why 86% were females, and how did participants build on the previous workshop in each case. This could be further explained, or perhaps move the paragraph starting on line 160 before the paragraph starting on line 141. During the analysis of the spaces, it would be interesting to include further explanation on whether the plans of the areas where the spaces are located were the main tool for analysis, or whether insights from female users and residents were part of this process as well. Also, it is worth indicating whether the workshop participants have prior knowledge or have worked on the four spaces.

 

The methodology section needs revision, to reorganise the content and clarify the methodology further. Is a feminist methodology adopted for this research, or a methodology about social innovation as mentioned on line 216? How does the methodology correspond to and align with the conceptual framework of the paper? This requires explanation. Currently, there is a missing link between both.

 

The sub-sections in section 3 on findings need to be aligned with the conceptual framework, perhaps the authors could consider this. Also, the results could be consolidated to refer to scales, legislation, stakeholders, capacity building, and temporal frameworks.

 

In the section on findings, line 236, the authors need to clarify what is meant by ‘gender-neutral stance’. Although the term gender does not appear in documents, and as the participants are practitioners, it would be interesting to understand whether in practice, there is an imbalance. On line 255, the authors mention the possibility of ‘informal, voluntary practice’, and could further elaborate on its sustainability and possibility of streamlining formally within planning practice. The issue raised on line 270 on the levels of plans and possibility of integrating gender considerations is very interesting and could be expanded. Lines 297-299 indicate an important issue regarding planning actors, their hierarchy and role in promoting gender equality and inclusion, which is addressed in lines 300-302, could be further developed. On line 313, the findings indicate problems with “institutional inertia and process control”, which would be interesting to further expand. In Figure 2, what were the reasons behind partial agreement by some workshop participants? Was this further investigated and did it yield clues to address certain problems? The paragraph on lines 328-339 refers to some participants’ opinion about using case studies, but the analysis of how conclusions about these cases were reached is missing. Line 343 on illegally built houses, could be further clarified. Does illegality stem from not having a construction permit or is it related to the land on which the houses were constructed or something else? What pushes people to violate the law? How is this related to gender issues? Lines 371-375 this is an important point on how to further engage women in participating, and perhaps the authors could offer some solutions to explain what the ‘targeted and tailored actions’ could be. Line 391 on integrating different disciplines in the planning process is highly significant and could be further elaborated.

 

The discussion could be reworked, to reflect on the findings rather than reiterate general conclusions that were stated earlier in the paper. The paragraph starting on line 441 could be moved to the literature review section. Similarly, lines 456-470 are more about literature and cases in other contexts rather than building on the findings.

 

One recommendation is to consider reorganizing and merging the findings and discussion sections.

 

The paper is well written, but some editing is required (the use of articles, long sentences are among the required edits).

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your submission. I hope you find the attached review report useful for improving the quality of the paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The entire paper needs further proofreading in English to enhance clarity and ensure it is meaningful.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors I redid the review and accepted the manuscript for publication. It was greatly improved.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. The changes made throughout, especially in terms of adding new references and expanding the literature review, revisiting the methodology section, and reogrganising the findings were very helpful. Also, combining the discussion and conclusion now enabled the authors to avoid descriptive repetitions and focus on what comes next based on this research.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised manuscript is significantly clearer and more readable. The authors have done an excellent job in addressing the previous concerns, resulting in a well-structured and coherent document. The clarity of the arguments and the improved flow of the text make the manuscript much more engaging and easier to follow. The revisions have greatly enhanced the overall quality of the work.