The participatory logic of coastal management under the project state: Insights from the Estuary Entrance Management Support System (EEMSS) in Victoria, Australia

Stakeholder participation is widely recognised as an integral part of coastal management. Involving stakeholders allows for a more reflexive consideration of ecological science outputs within a wider socio-economic and cultural context. However stakeholder participation remains problematic especially when the involvement is short term and limited under the ‘project state’ where the new governance regime uses the ‘project’ as a means of finding solutions to distinct and delimited policy problems. To overcome issues associated with securing stakeholder participation in the project state we argue for the development of a ‘participatory logic’. Using the example of the Estuary Entrance Management Support System (EEMSS) in Victoria, Australia we explore how embracing participatory logic can assist in identifying and overcoming the short termism and other difficulties associated with the project state. We begin with an outline of the project state and its relationship with participatory stakeholder engagement. We then develop the concept of participatory logic and explain its essentially political nature. Following this we describe the EEMSS project and explore its diffusion and scaling up in terms of its participatory logic. We conclude that the concept of participatory logic provides for a richer understanding of the way in which contested knowledge can inform coastal management.