State Power and Environmental NGOs in South Australia: Moving Towards a Sustainable Society?

Abstract

Environmental Non-government Organisations (ENGOs) have come to play an important and increasingly institutionalised role in environmental governance in Australia. Yet, as their relationships with government evolve and they become detached from their original grassroots forms, their new incarnations need to be examined to ensure they contribute to environmental governance in ways that enhance democracy. Improved environmental governance may be dependent on understanding these relationships, how they operate and the ways that they may change the activities and behaviour of ENGOs. This is particularly true if the inclusion of ENGOs in environmental governance is based on the premise that they are independent and able to articulate public sentiment about how the environment should be managed. A theoretical synthesis of Foucault and Gramsci informs the research questions which focus on whether ENGOs are inhibited by being embedded in government and how ENGOs work within these structures whilst maintaining independence. To answer these questions, the research used thematic analysis of interviews with ENGO professionals and government representatives. Results show how the South Australian (SA) government uses a variety of techniques to govern the activities of ENGOs. It also shows that ENGO professionals predominantly seek strong sustainable development that challenges the primacy of economic growth over environmental concerns. However, it is difficult for them to voice political-economic critiques of the weak sustainability that is hegemonic in environmental governance in Australia in their current relationships with government. Finally, the thesis shows the vulnerability of ENGO professionals to perpetuating the weak sustainability discourse because of a willingness to subvert critical discourses to the hegemony. The study suggests pursuit of projects that create horizontal links across civil society and focus on establishing connection to nature in the community to produce a new common sense that challenges the weak sustainability discourse.