ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the global context in which social and environmental policies are emerging. Globalisation and free markets have ensured new roles for multinational corporations and for non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Both on the international stage and within countries, NGOs are an increasingly important factor in discussion of development and the environment. In a global market of consumers, NGOs can exert pressure. The proponents of free markets are producing a world where insecurity is rife not only in the developing countries but also in the USA, the heartland of free markets. Global governance has been creeping up on us and there is the obvious possibility that new agencies could be created which would regulate, inspect and monitor progress towards environmental sustainability. Environmental citizenship has been canvassed as a way by which ideas of environmental responsibility can grow. Citizenship has been promoted as a unifying concept within social policy for over a century.
