<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>How many times has this list been around this track ...?</div><div><br></div><div>Norbert Klein rightly brings to attention the difficulties to which democracy can be prey.</div><div><br></div><div>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."</div><div><br></div><div>By no stretch of the imagination does so-called multi-stakeholderism hold out prospect to be a replacement.</div><div><br></div><div>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."</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>Rather than shibboleths, as seemingly easy - but really just facile - answers, we might apply ourselves to the serious work at hand.</div><div><br></div><div>As Michael Gurstein has encouraged. </div><div><br></div><div>David</div><br><div><div>On Oct 1, 2012, at 10:36 AM, michael gurstein wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="white" lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; "><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">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…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">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…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">M<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div><div style="border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding-top: 3pt; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; "><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; color: windowtext; ">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; color: windowtext; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org">governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org</a> [<a href="mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Norbert Klein<br><b>Sent:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Monday, October 01, 2012 10:08 AM<br><b>To:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a><br><b>Subject:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: [governance] Principles<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">Interesting and important.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">There is an assumption what “most of us” would expect – but it is not defined.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">So I assume – maybe wrongly? - it is a kind of “one man (or woman) one vote”? If not – so what? Please elaborate.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">This surely was a good principle – it was used a lot arguing, for example, against the South African Apartheid regime which rejected it.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">Was it a triumph of democracy when the National Socialists<b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(</b>the<b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Na</b>tionalso<b>zi</b>alisten<b>” = Nazi”),</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with the help of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_People%27s_Party" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; ">German National People's Party</span></a>, were victorious in elections in March 1933 – starting a dark age of German history, tremendous damage on many others too.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">“Demo-cracy” hints at a concept that the will of the people governs. But how?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">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.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">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?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">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?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">It is on this background that I well understand the short statement (which is open to misunderstandings) about Internet Governance:<o:p></o:p></p><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">“Multistakeholderism <b>*IS*</b> the highest form of participatory democracy”<o:p></o:p></pre><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; ">If it is not – so what else, and how?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; "><br>Norbert Klein<br>Phnom Penh/Cambodia<o:p></o:p></p><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; ">=<br><br>On 10/1/2012 7:59 PM, michael gurstein wrote:<o:p></o:p></div></div><blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt; "><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">Wolfgang and all,<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">I`ve just had an opportunity to observe at somewhat close hand a series of<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">multi-stakeholder processes at work (in Agriculture planning) in several<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">African countries... I was quite impressed for a number of reasons which I<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">won`t go into here (I`m currently working on the report...<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">However, one conclusion that I would draw is that while<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">`multi-stakeholderism` is in at least some instances very effective as an<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">inclusive, let`s say `participative` management tool it is very far from<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">what I, or I think almost anyone would call ``democratic`` (unless, as in<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">some I think, quite perverse instances, one chooses to conflate the notions<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">of management with democracy).<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">The problem is that while multi-stakeholderism is inclusive of interests it<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">is not necessarily accountable or representative of or for those interests.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">So for example, while a national or reagional farmers` union might be a very<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">effective stakeholder representative of the interests of small holder<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">farmers the precise process of accountability and representivity is in many<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">instances a very open question subject to for example, the personailities of<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">individuals, literacy, access to media and information, political<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">interference etc. etc. The latter caveats do not preclude the former<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">affirmations but they do strongly bracket the degree to which such processes<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">could at all be called ``democratic`` at least within any definition of the<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">term that I (or I would expect most of us) would understand.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">I think your broad objective of pursuing a framework for multi-stakeholder<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">governance of the Internet is a worthwhile one and one I hope to contribute<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">to in Baku, however, I think a useful outcome of that initiative would still<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">leave open the question of overall democractic governance and accountability<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">of the Internet.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">Best,<o:p></o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; "><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: black; ">Mike<o:p></o:p></pre></blockquote><div style="margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; margin-top: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div></div>____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> <a href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a><br>To be removed from the list, visit:<br> <a href="http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing" style="color: blue; 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