[governance] Principles

[michael gurstein]

A few questions/comments Matthias...

 

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Kettemann,
Matthias (matthias.kettemann at uni-graz.at)
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 4:49 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Norbert Bollow
Subject: AW: [governance] Principles

 

Dear all

 

though I enjoy this discussion I think there are two underlying problems. 1)
Most notions of democracy used in this (and a lot of other) debate(s) are
state-centred. They are no longer tenable as a legitimating basis for the
production of rules in transnational constellations. 

[MG>] Who says and why should we accept your or anyone's assertion that
"they are no longer tenable... This seems to be a very presumptuous position
especially since it is asserted not argued for...

 

To ensure that they are legitimate, we need a new concept of democrac. 

[MG>] Again, who says so and why should I or anyone take this opinion as
fact...

 

 

2)  Discussants often mix  up two different notions of democracy: the formal
and the material one. Formally, democracy demands that each vote be counted.
But that's not enough. Over the years there has been developed an
international cumstomary law basis of what democracy materially truly means
- human rights-based, accountable government (and good governance) based on
real, periodic, secret elections. 

[MG>] This seems to me to be confused/confusing although it may just be
linguistic difficulties... It seems to me that "democracy" rather goes
beyond "demanding" that each vote be counted to ensuring some degree and
means of control over the governors by the governed... having each vote be
counted is necessary for this but certainly not sufficient... Your assertion
concerning the difference between a "formal" definition and a "material"
definition seems to me to include a very high degree of overlap (viz. real,
periodic, secret elections which you asserted as being the very essence of
the "formal" defintion...

 

 

What does this mean for our debate? We need to focus not on democracy as a
concept, but legitimacy as a goal.

[MG>] I really have no idea what this means.  I'm not sure who if anyone has
(or would) simply focus on "democracy as a concept"... democracy is most
certainly a concept but as such it needs to be unpacked, translated, given
"materiality"... Apart from straw men, I would assume that anyone discussing
this here would move into this realm and beyond simply "democracy as a
concept"...

 

 

How does this work? First of all, we need to look at the material, not the
formal, notion of democracy. We need to ensure that the rules we aim for are
materially reflective of the needs of those to whom they are applied. 

[MG>] Yes, see above... So what...

 

 

Second, 'one (wo)man, one vote' is a nice slogan, but it's just no enough in
our post-national constellation. We have to think about how in the
'post-democratic' order (in the sense of post-nation state-based democracy)
order legitimacy can be conveyed in the process of producing norms. 

[MG>] Again a straw person argument... ('one (wo)man, one vote' is a nice
slogan')... and again I have no idea what this (following) could mean. "how
in the 'post-democratic' order (in the sense of post-nation state-based
democracy) order legitimacy can be conveyed in the process of producing
norms."

 

 

Now, what does this mean for the Internet Governance debate? We need to
identify the best process of how to convey legitimacy. This process, as has
been pointed out, is multistakeholderism. But multistakeholderism is not a
form of participatory democracy; it is a new form of conveying legitimacy in
post-democratic trans-national constellations. 

[MG>] Legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder(s)... One man's legitimacy is
another person's bastard child.... I agree that "multistakeholderism is (an
attempt) at a new form of conveying legitimacy etc.etc." how successful that
attempt is, is I think the subject of this discussion...

 

 

Just as good democracy does nationally, multistakeholder-baesd
decision-making have heightened input legitimacy and lead to normative
outcomes that are materially reflective of the individual's central needs
(and thus have high output legitimacy). 

[MG>] Again, I have no idea what this means...

 

 

This is one of the points I'm making in the published version of my PhD
which Eleven International will publish in autumn.

 

So less talk about democracy, and more talk about legitimacy. 

[MG>] I think we need to talk about both and recognize that both terms are
subject to a wide range of interpretations/evaluations and to a considerable
degree are in some state of (technologically induced) transition to an end
point which is as yet unclear.

 

Best,

 

M 

 

Kind regards

 

Matthias

 

--

Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard) Institute of International Law
and International Relations University of Graz E |
<mailto:matthias.kettemann at uni-graz.at> matthias.kettemann at uni-graz.at Blog
| internationallawandtheinternet.blogspot.com

________________________________________

Von:  <mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org>
governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] im Auftrag von Norbert Bollow
[nb at bollow.ch]

Gesendet: Montag, 01. Oktober 2012 22:23

An:  <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org> governance at lists.igcaucus.org

Betreff: Re: [governance] Principles

 

Dear all

 

I'm rather alarmed by Wolfgang's assertion that "Multistakeholderism

*IS* the highest form of participatory democracy".

 

I would suggest that the main point of democracy is to safeguard the public
interest against being overpowered by powerful particular interests.

 

By contrast, multistakeholderism allows all stakeholders to participate
without restriction. This implies that it cannot contain adequate processes
for making decisions on those questions which, due to significant conflicts
between different legitimate interest, cannot be resolved by rough
consensus.

 

It is true that democratic governance systems tend to have imperfections,
and I'm all in favor of working on fixing any and all bugs that can be
clearly identified and for which a known solution strategy exists. One of
these bugs is the current tendency of governments (including in particular
the judicial branch) to make Internet related decisions without
understanding what they're doing.

As you know I'm proposing to address this bug by means of a multistakeholder
process to create informative recommendation documents to inform them
better.

(  <http://enhanced-cooperation.org/RFA/1>
http://enhanced-cooperation.org/RFA/1 )

 

But please let's avoid talking about multistakeholderism as if it in itself
somehow were an improved form of democracy. It isn't.

 

Further, I agree with the points made by Michael Gurstein and David Allen.

 

Greetings,

Norbert

 

 

David Allen < <mailto:David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu>
David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu> wrote:

 

> How many times has this list been around this track ...?

> 

> Norbert Klein rightly brings to attention the difficulties to which 

> democracy can be prey.

> 

> And Winston Churchill helped us understand - in that very sober light

> - where we stand today:  "... democracy is the worst form of 

> government except all the others that have been tried."

> 

> By no stretch of the imagination does so-called multi-stakeholderism 

> hold out prospect to be a replacement.

> 

> That does not of course remove the terrible blemishes democracy may 

> create.  In fact, another Churchill quote holds that:  "The best 

> argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the 

> average voter."

> 

> What is clear is that we just might benefit from some quality thinking 

> and some hard, collaborative work, to try to understand how 

> representativeness may be instantiated, in a much-more-connected 

> world, and especially in a world that now truly becomes global.

> Where agreement among very many, and many very different, actors is 

> now often urgent.  But more and more difficult to cobble together, 

> because of the scale and attendant complexity.  Yet, ultimate power in 

> individual citizen hands is therefore all the more paramount, as the 

> starting point.

> 

> Rather than shibboleths, as seemingly easy - but really just facile

> - answers, we might apply ourselves to the serious work at hand.

> 

> As Michael Gurstein has encouraged.

> 

> David

> 

> On Oct 1, 2012, at 10:36 AM, michael gurstein wrote:

> 

> > Very good question Norbert and I well accept your cases and I don't 

> > have any easy answers (but nor I think, does anyone else.

> >

> > Two things though, I know for sure that governance by self- 

> > appointed, essentially unaccountable "stakeholders" is not 

> > "democracy" at least by any definition I understand, and also that 

> > we probably need to have some sort of collective rethinking/ 

> > redefinition of what we do mean by democracy in an age of 

> > instantaneous and essentially free and massified communication and 

> > information, the capacity for borderless (and defenseless) action at 

> > a distance, mass literacy, and other manifestations of the 

> > technologically transformed world that has emerged and would be 

> > completely unrecognizable to the conceptualizers of representative 

> > democracy in the 18th and 19th century.

> >

> > Issues of scale and unit (macro and micro the neighborhood, the 

> > tribe, the province, the nation, the world);  issues of 

> > accountability and transparency (increased opportunity for and 

> > increased means to avoid), issues of efficacy (personal, collective, 

> > associative) and a wide range of others need to be accounted for and 

> > I think "we" as a species have only just started that rethinking 

> > process.

> >

> > In the meantime abandoning something that we do know and understand 

> > and have some experience with for leaps in the dark seems to me to 

> > be a not very useful place to begin.

> >

> > M

> >

> > From:  <mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org>
governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org

> >  <mailto:[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org%20]>
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org ] On Behalf Of Norbert 

> > Klein Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 10:08 AM

> > To:  <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
governance at lists.igcaucus.org

> > Subject: Re: [governance] Principles

> >

> > Interesting and important.

> > My question relates to this part: "the degree to which such 

> > processes could at all be called ``democratic`` at least within any 

> > definition of the term that I (or I would expect most of us) would 

> > understand."

> > There is an assumption what "most of us" would expect - but it is 

> > not defined.

> > So I assume - maybe wrongly? - it is a kind of "one man (or woman) 

> > one vote"? If not - so what? Please elaborate.

> > This surely was a good principle - it was used a lot arguing, for 

> > example, against the South African Apartheid regime which rejected 

> > it. Was it a triumph of democracy when the National Socialists (the 

> > "Nationalsozialisten" = Nazi"), with the help of the German National 

> > People's Party, were victorious in elections in March 1933 - 

> > starting a dark age of German history, tremendous damage on many 

> > others too.

> > "Demo-cracy" hints at a concept that the will of the people governs. 

> > But how?

> > The Cambodian People's Party has gained more and more seats in the 

> > National Assembly through every vote since 1993 - but the UN Special 

> > Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia has raised 

> > serious concerns because the electoral system - especially the 

> > National Election Committee - is controlled by government 

> > appointees, NOT representing the plurality of parties in the 

> > National Assembly. And thousands and thousands of people forcefully 

> > evicted from their traditional areas of residency have not only lost 

> > their homes, but they are no longer on residency related voter 

> > lists. Is the one-country-one-vote - on the UN level - more 

> > democratic, where 14 million Cambodia have the same vote-weight as 

> > 235+ million of Indonesia?

> > The question is not only: What is democratic? - In the actual 

> > situations where we live it means also: How do we move towards the 

> > good goal that "the people's" benefits (not the majority of the 

> > people who voted in the Nazis in Germany, I add, without offering at 

> > the same time a rationale for my personal opinion here) are central? 

> > It is on this background that I well understand the short statement 

> > (which is open to misunderstandings) about Internet

> > Governance: "Multistakeholderism *IS* the highest form of 

> > participatory democracy" If it is not - so what else, and how?

> >

> > Norbert Klein

> > Phnom Penh/Cambodia

> >

> > =

> >

> > On 10/1/2012 7:59 PM, michael gurstein wrote:

> > Wolfgang and all,

> >

> > I`ve just had an opportunity to observe at somewhat close hand a 

> > series of multi-stakeholder processes at work (in Agriculture 

> > planning) in several African countries... I was quite impressed for 

> > a number of reasons which I won`t go into here (I`m currently 

> > working on the report...

> >

> > However, one conclusion that I would draw is that while 

> > `multi-stakeholderism` is in at least some instances very effective 

> > as an inclusive, let`s say `participative` management tool it is 

> > very far from what I, or I think almost anyone would call 

> > ``democratic`` (unless, as in some I think, quite perverse 

> > instances, one chooses to conflate the notions of management with 

> > democracy).

> >

> > The problem is that while multi-stakeholderism is inclusive of 

> > interests it is not necessarily accountable or representative of or 

> > for those interests.

> > So for example, while a national or reagional farmers` union might 

> > be a very effective stakeholder representative of the interests of 

> > small holder farmers the precise process of accountability and 

> > representivity is in many instances a very open question subject to 

> > for example, the personailities of individuals, literacy, access to 

> > media and information, political interference etc. etc. The latter 

> > caveats do not preclude the former affirmations but they do strongly 

> > bracket the degree to which such processes could at all be called 

> > ``democratic`` at least within any definition of the term that I (or 

> > I would expect most of us) would understand.

> >

> > I think your broad objective of pursuing a framework for multi- 

> > stakeholder governance of the Internet is a worthwhile one and one I 

> > hope to contribute to in Baku, however, I think a useful outcome of 

> > that initiative would still leave open the question of overall 

> > democractic governance and accountability of the Internet.

> >

> > Best,

> >

> > Mike

 

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