Between argument and coercion: Social coordination in rural environmental governance

Increasingly, partnerships and other cooperative forms of governance are common-place in addressing problems of environmental management in rural landscapes. These forms of governance are multi-dimensional in the policy instruments employed; the make-up of actors; and, the types of rationalities that actors use to debate the problem and proposed solutions. This paper pursues the question of how different modes of social action, represented in argumentative claims of participants, influence social coordination in these governance arenas. An empirical study is presented of agri-environmental governance in Australia where actors debate planning and policy initiatives to reduce diffuse water quality impacts from farms on the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. Forester’s conceptualisation of practical social action which locates communicative action in the ‘real world’ of interest-based planning contexts, is used as an analytical frame to identify: (i) the type of claims made by governments, farmer groups and other actors in argumentation; (ii) the claims association with communicative, strategic and instrumental modes of action; and, (iii) their consequence for social coordination in formation and maintenance of inclusive, legitimate and viable forms of governing. The study finds that the interconnected character of claims made by actors, and the ready switching between modes of action observed, point to a situated and dynamic expression of rationality within these contested and prolonged debates on how to legitimately and effectively govern rural environments.