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<font face="Verdana">We need to make a distinction between public -
in whose name the conception of 'public interest' is created, and
who, in a democratic system, influence political outcomes through
participation in the 'public sphere' - from what may be called as
'civil society'. I see a lot of confusion here between these two
important but very different terms and concepts of a democratic
ecology. Everyone is 'public' and have the corresponding rights,
including various rights of participation, but not everyone can be
called as 'civil society'.<br>
<br>
Civil society has generally referred to relatively organised
groups oriented to some kind of public action - which is informed
by public interest and not private interest. Before going forward,
one must mention that a lot of individuals, with the dint of their
demonstrated work and networks of collective action, do become
important parts of civil society. The digitally networked world
adds a (welcome) complexity that many more individuals can be
members of civil society </font><font face="Verdana">, in this
manner, </font><font face="Verdana">than was</font><font
face="Verdana"> possible earlier . This new dimension should be
fully taken into account, with groups like IGC being important
sites where such civil society identity is built and expressed. </font><br>
<font face="Verdana"><br>
However, the new context does not completely remove the
traditional conceptual boundaries of what is and what is not civil
society. Norbert explained at length his conception of these
boundaries, and I agree with him. <br>
<br>
Every term or concept has some boundaries of its application, and
it would be meaningless without them. The impact of killing the
meaning of a term is of damaging the interests of those who employ
it for specific purposes. If we want to argue ad absurdum,
anything can be reduced to everything-ness which is also nothing
ness.... Each of us </font><font face="Verdana">is </font><font
face="Verdana">also a productive agent is some way or the other,
and 'sells' some service or product, yosou well, everyone is
business, everyone has some technical (and academic) skills, and
so..... in countries like India, where governance system goes deep
to include every adult citizen in many governance activities, then
everyone is also government......<br>
<br>
BTW, what does this kind of vaporisation of stakeholder categories
do to multistakeholderism - As aptly questioned by Ian... We are
then all just 'public', and governance is based on developing
contextual conceptions of public interest, which is done by normal
democratic methods..... Multistakeholderists cannot have their
cake and eat it too...... Either there are stakeholder categories,
with some definitions, or there are not.....<br>
<br>
Two other conceptions have been offered for delineating civil
society. One is self definition. Well, fine, but why does this not
apply say also to technical community..... Why is it fine that
someone who self defines himself as technical and academic
community, and in fact is demonstrably an academic, may not be
considered as 'tech and academic community' by whoever is the <br>
gatekeeper of that particular community, What is interesting that
most people now on the side of keeping civil society as fully open
and diffuse category were rather sympathetic to the actions of the
gatekeepers of tech and academic community.... This question needs
to be responded to.<br>
<br>
Or, and this is my political question, why is it is just the civil
society that is offered such pious advices which would simply
results in it loosing its effectiveness... Think of some reps of
big telecom industry, including as Karl says, multiple legal
replicas of them, being able to fully participate in a civil
society effort at building consensus over some net neutrality
principles. What Norbert has expounded are simple conflict of
interest principles that is basic to organising public life and
public systems in all democracies. <br>
<br>
And the further political context of this discussion is, that
although definitionally any non-gov, non-business grouping would
be </font><font face="Verdana">civil society</font><font
face="Verdana">, the term has a preponderant usage for groups
representing the interests of those who are normally marginalised
and under-represented.... Which is why in WSIS, for instance, you
had civil society caucuses representing the interests of women,
ethnic minorities, disabled people etc and none for the
corresponding empowered categories. Creating definitional
weaknesses that contribute to organisational ineffectivness of
civil society compromise the interests of these weaker sections.
We must accept that business groups are (mostly) organised around
interests of large shareholders, and thus a corresponding
worldview and policy positions. All civil society groups
understand that, without meaning any personal disrespect to any
one. (Neither does it mean that every time business has a view
that hurts the interests of the marginalised. Of course not.) But
we are intent on being blind to such simple universally accepted
facts of political life we are compromising the interests of
marginalised people. And we are also constructing civil society
groupings that are sorely out of sync with civil society groupings
in practically all other global governance/ policy spaces....<br>
<br>
Lastly, some participants here have mentioned that having/
representing 'civil society values/ interests' is what is
relevant to being civil society. Can they clarify what they mean
by these terms. Is it the interests of those who are otherwise
easily marginalised from policy/ governance spaces, and are
generally the ones suffering social, economic and other kinds of
injustices..... Or is it something else. Unless we know what
'civil society values/ interests' mean we can identify the civil
society persons that espouse these values/ interests. <br>
<br>
parminder<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Thursday 19 September 2013 04:10 PM,
Norbert Bollow wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:20130919124046.5362dd8a@quill" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">JFC Morfin <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jefsey@jefsey.com"><jefsey@jefsey.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">At 18:43 18/09/2013, Norbert Bollow wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Peter H. Hellmonds <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:peter.hellmonds@hellmonds.eu"><peter.hellmonds@hellmonds.eu></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Perhaps we need to make a phone call to clarify
things. I'll send you my number in a private mail. We can then
discuss offline and inform the list of the outcome.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Update: Peter and I have talked and have amicably resolved the
issue between us.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
I am glad of that. However, the matter raised key general issues that
have to be discussed outside of friendly phone talk. I concatenate
them.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
Of course I just intended to say what has been amicably resolved is
the interpersonal aspect of misunderstanding each other to some degree,
and resulting interpersonal tensions.
Substantively, Peter and I still agree to some extent and disagree to
some extent and we don't have a problem with that.
One point on which I had not communicated clearly enough in my postings
is that in my mind OF COURSE EVERYONE IS A MEMBER OF CIVIL SOCIETY in
the sense of everyone being equally part of the general “public
interest” constituency that many civil society representatives claim to
represent. (There are also narrower constituencies, such as e.g.
“persons with visual disabilities” whose representatives should of
course likewise be recognized as “civil society representatives”.)
My remarks about the importance of working on maintaining reasonably
strong independence from government and private sector particular
interests (related to the topic area under discussion) refer not to who
is part of “civil society” as a constituency, but to participation
in multistakeholder processes as “civil society representatives”.
If we want credible civil society representation, we need to work on
our credibility.
I'm not suggesting to introduce gatekeepers of any kind who would
execute some kind of formal process of verification.
But I think that it would be of significant value to have much more
transparency on funding etc. We could even develop a formal standard
with requirements on what kinds of disclosures individuals and
organizations who want to engage as formal “civil society
representatives” should make at a minimum.
As I wrote, such a narrowing of who participates in multistakeholder
processes under the “civil society” banner must be balanced by at the
same time introducing a way for people to participate without making a
claim of specifically being a representative that fits into the any
particular of three primary categories of stakeholder representatives.
Hence the new “multi/other” category in my proposal.
By the way, besides the four categories of stakeholder representatives
“GOV” (government and intergovernmental organization representatives),
“CS” (civil society representatives), “BIZ” (business/private sector
representatives), “M/O” (multi/other stakeholder representatives),
there should probably be an additional registration option “TGO” for
representatives of technical governance organizations such as the
specialized Internet governance institutions, technical standardization
committees, etc. I don't think that it makes sense to classify TGOs
as a stakeholder category, but the TGOs exist in order to make
multistakeholder governance work in a way that is generally acceptable,
from perspectives which include the perspectives of all the primary
categories of stakeholder group representatives, and hence it is
obviously important to explicitly include TGO representatives in the
discussions.
Greetings,
Norbert
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