From diffusion to defusion: the roots and effects of environmental innovation in New Zealand

Abstract In recent years, the diffusion of environmental policy innovations has become a topic of considerable interest. Often, studies of diffusion portray it in positive terms, as a process of ‘policy learning’ or the spread of environmental ‘best practice’. Such portrayals, which tend to ignore the political-ideological roots of environmental policy innovation and diffusion, contribute to the depoliticisation of environmental (and sustainable development) decision-making. In particular, the spread of neo-liberal ideology has provided a basis for environmental policy innovations that, under the guise of ‘objectivity’, tilt the ‘playing field’ further to the advantage of dominant interests. Thus, the challenging political, economic and social issues generated by the environmental policy and sustainable development debates, which have the potential to re-politicise economic policy (the ‘Washington Consensus’), are side-stepped. As environmental decision-making is devolved to ‘the market’, local government, experts, and the courts, the environmental ‘threat’ is defused. It is this effect that makes the New Zealand innovations attractive to the governments of other countries, especially those with an adversarial political system. The article analyses the neoliberal roots, and effects, of New Zealand's environmental innovations to demonstrate the argument.