Chapter 11: Historical Methods in the Critical Study of Drug Policy

Contemporary Australian drug policy – particularly in the form of the National Drug Strategy – draws heavily on partnership rhetoric, casting the non-government sector as a key stakeholder both in terms of service delivery and their contribution to policy processes. This chapter discusses how historical methods and perspectives on the ‘past’ were used in a critical study of non-government organisations' (NGOs') role in drug policy in Australia. As such, the project combined historical methods and traditional social science methods through semi-structured interviews with representatives from NGOs to gain an understanding of the complexity of the role of NGOs in Australian drug policy. Historical methods were used to critically interrogate the present-day idea of partnerships and construct a historical narrative of the development of partnerships rhetoric in Australian drug policy. As will be shown, this historical lens, and associated historical methods, cast new light on the responses of interviewees involved in the drug policy field and the present state of relationships between government and NGOs in the Australian alcohol and other drug (AOD) field.