Participation, Decentralization, and Civil Society

This article examines Australian indigenous participation in environmental planning to challenge some of the claims made by advocates of more participatory modes of planning. Calls for the enhanced participation of civil society in planning are associated with an international trend toward the decentralization and devolution of many areas of natural resource policy and state responsibility. Democratic decentralization has been widely advocated as being more efficient and equitable than state control. These claims are examined with reference to three stories involving environmental planning and Australian indigenous peoples. The stories suggest that rather than a “new political economy of planning” whereby the spaces for democracy are enlarged by the activities of civil society, the participation of civil society and decentralization can result in political processes whereby public deliberation is suborned by interest group politics.