<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body ><div>What about those NGOs, research and educational enterprise that get most of their funding from industry. Are they influenced? Certainly ofif we were talking about lab testing of that industry's products we would consider them influenced.</div><div><br></div><div>Avri</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:75%">Sent from a T-Mobile 4G LTE Device</div><br><br><br>-------- Original message --------<br>From: Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> <br>Date: 09/18/2013 11:04 (GMT-05:00) <br>To: governance@lists.igcaucus.org <br>Subject: Re: [governance] stakeholder categories (was Re: NSA sabotage of Internet security standards...) <br> <br><br>Peter H. Hellmonds <peter.hellmonds@hellmonds.eu> wrote:<br><br>> Norbert,<br>> <br>> How would you determine who has "a high degree of independence from<br>> government and from commercial interests related to the topics on<br>> which they engage"?<br><br>I would propose that people and organizations who purport to participate<br>as civil society should be asked to publish some statement about what<br>they do to ensure a high degree of independence.<br><br>If such a statement turns out to be significantly deceptive, that should<br>be punishable as fraud. For example astroturf should be persecuted as a<br>kind of such fraud.<br><br>> Do you think that everyone of those who work for,<br>> or even speak for, a specific government or business is by virtue of<br>> that association not independent?<br><br>Yes, in regard to topics which concern the policies or actions of that<br>government, or which are directly related to specific business<br>interests of that company.<br><br>Being in the employment of an organization is the most obvious form of<br>clearly not being independent from it.<br><br>> And what value should lie in that independence?<br><br>Making it easier to be not be unduly influenced in one's thinking by<br>the particular interests of any of those entities which have strong<br>particular interests related to the topic under discussion. <br><br>> I presume that you<br>> have lost trust in government agencies who spy on us just as much as<br>> I do. And that you mistrust companies who have followed legal orders<br>> or who have willingly cooperated or collaborated with those spy<br>> agencies. That you have lost trust in the system of checks and<br>> balances where those checks have clearly failed. I am fully with you<br>> on that.<br><br>I have also to a significant degree lost trust in my own ability to<br>objectively think about matters of the public interest unless I take<br>precautionary actions to prevent myself from being unduly influenced <br>by phenomena like not risking to lose one's job, hope of winning someone<br>as a customer, the very human need to be respected and accepted by the<br>people who are one's peer group, etc.<br><br>All the serious literature on this kind of phenomena (as far as I<br>have read it) leads me to believe that this susceptibility (to forms of<br>social corruption which are not illegal but nevertheless corrupting) is<br>not just my personal problem, but in fact part of human nature.<br><br>Consequently there is value in maintaining a kind of independence that<br>is designed to minimize this kind of temptations.<br><br>> But throwing all government or business people into the same<br>> category of "untrustworthy because not independent" does not do<br>> justice to the majority of people working in these organizations. <br><br>That is not what I'm saying. I'm proposing a model of stakeholder<br>categorization in which someone who is a engaging as a representative<br>of any one of the stakeholder categories “government”, “civil<br>society”, “private sector” is as a logical consequence of the<br>definitions not at the same time and for the same issue engaging as a<br>member of any other of these three stakeholder categories.<br><br>A logical consequence of this is the need for a new category<br>“multi/other”.<br><br>I think that the introduction of such a “multi/other” category (which<br>by definition does not have a specific “respective role” in Internet<br>governance, but which is needed to ensure that everyone who does not<br>neatly fit into one of the categories with specific “respective roles”<br>can still fully participate in the discourse) violates neither the<br>spirit nor the letter of the Tunis Agenda. Quite on the contrary, I<br>this a logical consequence of taking the remark seriously about<br>governments, civil society and private sector having “respective roles”<br>in Internet governance without at the same time excluding from the<br>discourse everyone who does not fit into such a “three categories of<br>roles” model. <br><br>> To answer your question: there is value in individuals, regardless of<br>> affiliation, to maintain an independence of thought and to work<br>> together in achieving common public policy goals.<br><br>Of course.<br><br>The whole point of multistakeholderism is to recognize and value what<br>people and organizations of the different stakeholder categories can<br>contribute to the discussions on the basis of their experiences,<br>knowledge, and ability to take action.<br><br>In particular I respect and value what private sector representatives<br>bring to the table in terms of hand-on experience in creating and<br>delivering relevant products and services, and in terms of their<br>resulting ability to be change agents for positive changes.<br><br>Conversely, I would like to request that the choice which I and others<br>have made should also be respected, that we have chosen to engage in a<br>way that is by design independent of commercial and government<br>interests in the areas of our engagement.<br><br>> Finally, I feel like you are trying to preach from a high tower when<br>> you claim that "as every honest person will admit", the "trappings of<br>> political power and of commercial interest" can "easily lead people<br>> astray in their thinking."<br>> <br>> Do you mean by this that everyone who works in government or business<br>> is suspicious of leaving his civil conscience, his ethics and morals,<br>> behind by virtue of drawing a paycheck from a particular organization?<br>> <br>> Maybe you should throw that "holier-than-though" attitude that I<br>> sense behind that claim<br><br>Wanting to assert and preserve the specific particularity of “civil<br>society” (in the sense in which I understand the term), and thereby<br>the particular value that civil society can bring to the table in<br>multistakeholder processes, has nothing to do with "holier-than-though".<br><br>Similarly it has nothing to do with "holier-than-though" when private<br>sector representatives point out that it is the private sector who<br>creates and delivers relevant products and services.<br><br>And it also has nothing to do with "holier-than-though" when people who<br>register to international conferences as government representatives<br>have to present proof of being part of the official delegation. For<br>example just being a government employee is not sufficient.<br><br>> and start engaging with those people and see who they really are and<br>> how they think<br><br>I'm doing that.<br><br>For example, I'm taking note that right now, a private sector<br>representative who is not just anyone but a person who has served on<br>the MAG as a private sector representative, is telling me that I should<br>maybe “throw” what I see as the very core of my choice to be a civil<br>society person, and that moreover essentially everyone who can claim<br>to have “ethics and morals” should be accepted as a civil society<br>person even if at the same time they're representing government or<br>private sector interests _in_the_topic_area_under_discussion_.<br><br>If that view were to be accepted, in the context which we're discussing<br>here (namely, multistakeholder processes in a Tunis Agenda context), it<br>would effectively destroy civil society as a distinct stakeholder<br>category.<br><br>That demand to dilute the notion of “civil society” to the point of<br>that notion no longer really meaning anything in particular is not just<br>disrespectful, it is an outright attack on the ability of civil society<br>(in the sense of what the term meant during the WSIS process, and in<br>the only slightly evolved sense in which I use the word) to effectively<br>participate.<br><br>After all, if we allow the notion “civil society” to be diluted to a<br>point where everyone can claim to be “civil society” on every issue,<br>it is clear that whatever the framers of the Tunis Agenda saw as the<br>specific “respective role” of civil society will clearly have been lost.<br>(Here I use the word “whatever” to indicate that this argument is<br>independent of whether we agree on what the role of civil society is or<br>what it should be.)<br><br>> before making such broad generalizations.<br><br>I am not making a broad generalization here.<br><br>I have many years of experience of engagement as a civil society<br>representative, and the vast majority of private sector people with<br>whom I've interacted have, in all their interactions with me, shown a<br>high level of professional courtesy and professional integrity. That<br>of course includes acceptance and respect for who I choose to be.<br><br>What is going on here on the IGC mailing list where some people (who<br>primarily identify as being private sector representatives or as<br>members of the technical community, but who don't primarily see<br>themselves as being “civil society”) are trying to tell civil society<br>people to change their understanding of what is “civil society”, that<br>is in my experience definitively the exception rather than the norm.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Norbert<br><br>-- <br>Recommendations for effective and constructive participation in IGC:<br>1. Respond to the content of assertions and arguments, not to the person<br>2. Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept<br><br><br></body>