Democratisation of Environmental Governance: Perceptions and Attitudes of Township Women Towards the Environment

Democratisation of environmental governance usually leads to positive changes in people’s perceptions and attitudes towards the environment and increases their participation in environmental matters. This paper aims to establish whether the same is true for township women following the democratisation of environmental governance in South Africa. The study is carried out in Mamelodi township, where semi-structured survey instruments were used to interview women who are heads of households. Although the literature implies that democracy fosters the participation of citizens in general and women in particular, the study findings reveal that in practice, besides institutional bottlenecks and social handicaps, factors such as poverty eradication, the availability of jobs, safety and security, transparent governance and service delivery rather than democratic environmental governance determine the attitudes of underprivileged groups such as women to environmental issues.