This research project aims to explain current developments in Northern Irish Rural Environmental Governance using post-structuralist discourse theory. The rural environment identified here is the agricultural environment which dominates the Northern Irish landscape and will focus on the issue of sustainable agriculture, funding, site designation for nature conservation, and mechanisms for governing the rural environmental. This project aims to explain why certain issues are prioritized over others.
As governance occurs over multiple levels, and the practices adopted by those who govern and are governed change and are changed by each other, this thesis will consider this interaction as central to the politics of this area in Northern Ireland as a member of the UK leaving the European Union, expanding on theories of discourse theoretical conceptions of governance.
