‘Make no mistake, we are angry’ How and why do environmental NGOs in England use ideas that place a financial value on the natural world to participate in environmental land management policy?

Stranix, Kerry (2025) ‘Make no mistake, we are angry’ How and why do environmental NGOs in England use ideas that place a financial value on the natural world to participate in environmental land management policy? Masters thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the role of environmental non-governmental organisations (eNGOs) in environmental land management policy in England from 2010 to 2024. It focuses particularly on the use of ideas that place a financial value on the natural world, such as natural capital. This period, marked by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s ambition to be ‘the greenest government ever’ and to leave the natural environment in England in a better state than it found it, saw both sustained policy change and rising public concern over environmental decline.

As a qualitative interpretive policy study, this research is guided by Clarke and Star’s (2008) social worlds framework to explore how eNGOs navigated this period. In particular, how they used nonhuman elements such as documents and ideas as boundary objects to participate in ELMS and shape policy outcomes. Drawing on document analysis and interviews, analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, four social worlds are presented. The social worlds are based on the predominant emotion being expressed by eNGOs and feature (1) a 'hopeful' initial phase, followed by (2) a 'cynical' phase, which led to (3) a social world marked by anger and frustration. Finally, social world four sees a collaborative approach between eNGOs, where the sector built influence by publicly speaking up to government and finding strength by working through formal coalitions.

My analysis suggests that applying the social worlds framework as a theory/methods package, particularly the identification and use of non-human elements, positioned as boundary objects, offers valuable insights into the dynamics of policy participation by eNGOs. These findings contribute to the challenge set by Durnová and Weible in 2020 to bridge the gap between qualitative, small-scale interpretive policy studies and mainstream, quantitative policy research.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	18 Dec 2025 08:33
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2025 08:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101458
DOI:

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