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On 20/05/2015 3:19 am, Norbert Bollow wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:20150520121933.4f1249d6@quill" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I would be very interested in in your thoughts about this:
Reflections on making Internet governance democratic and participative
by Norbert Bollow and Richard Hill
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://bollow.ch/papers/democratic_and_participative.pdf">http://bollow.ch/papers/democratic_and_participative.pdf</a>
Abstract: Recent events have made clear that there is a conflict
between the demand that global governance must be democratic and the
ideology of multistakeholderism</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Opening the abstract with a reference to the "ideology of
multistakeholderism" gives us the first hint about where this is
going...<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:20150520121933.4f1249d6@quill" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">which underlies the status quo of
Internet governance. This paper examines to what extent this conflict
is real (as opposed to being a matter of misunderstandings and/or
intentional misrepresentations of the other side's positions),</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Perpetrated in large part by the authors, which again suggests that
we might not expect a particularly impartial examination of the
topic...<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:20150520121933.4f1249d6@quill" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">and it
reflects on how the underlying problem of making Internet governance
democratic as well as participative can be solved.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Then once you get into the paper itself, the fever pitch of its
condemnation of multi-stakeholderism is underlined by the use of
"?!" to end the second and third paragraphs, which leads into the ad
hominem attacks. (This paper just gets better and better!)<br>
<br>
It then claims that the rift that JNC members have opened "can be
well-characterized as a rift between pro-multistakeholder and
pro-democracy viewpoints", which I suppose it can, if you skip over
the rest of that page which immediately contradicts itself by
quoting advocates of multi-stakeholder processes explaining how
these are simply intended to extend democratic principles at the
global level.<br>
<br>
Then we move into denialism about the implications of bandying about
words at the United Nations. Apparently, "Whenever a word has a
well-established literal meaning, and it is commonly used in the
sense of<br>
that meaning, then it has that meaning everywhere where that literal
meaning makes sense". I am grateful for the authors' deep insight
into diplomatic language, because I had the mistaken impression that
when Chen Xu of China spoke at the Global Conference on Cyberspace
saying the Internet governance needs to be promoted "in line with
principles of multilateralism, transparency and democracy", he meant
something different by "democracy" than what I would mean.<br>
<br>
The next part is my favourite paragraph in the whole paper because
it's so unintentionally funny, so I'm just going to set it out
without comment:<br>
<br>
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"In the present case, we think that the main reason for the
resistance to proposals for using the word “democratic” as part of
normative international documents on Internet governance is that our
opponents know that we are serious advocates for democracy, and that
we will not be satisfied when just a bit of lip service is given to
democracy. We insist that Internet governance must be made
democratic in actual reality."<br>
<br>
Then we slide into a democracy 101 lecture, which moves into the
novel claim that the only way to stop global governance processes
from being captured is to anchor them in the United Nations. Well,
that's a testable proposition and probably the first useful part of
the paper, in that it's the first clear statement of what JNC
actually believes, rather than hand-wavy claims like that they are
such serious advocates for democracy!?<br>
<br>
Some of the other points that follow, such as about the reliance on
English in existing processes, are also good (and valid criticisms
of some existing multi-stakeholder processes, though not of the
ideals that underlie them). In all seriousness I did also find "at
the heart of the sociodynamics of the ideology of
multistakeholderism is the desire of members of the Internet
'technical community' to be able to prevent or at least minimize the
risk of state action that interferes with the Internet" to be a
valid critique of ISOC's position, which I have also (despite being
an evil multi-stakeholderist) always criticised. However it's
certainly not valid as a broader critique of, say, the
multi-stakeholder models that governments support.<br>
<br>
The paper concludes with what is, in light of the previous
incendiary criticisms by JNC of civil society groups' participation
in initiatives such as NMI, a surprising concession that
"Incremental improvements are valuable<br>
and helpful even where they do not fully achieve the desired
objective that all Internet governance<br>
must be democratic and participative". I can't argue with that, but
it really does shine an uncomfortable light on JNC's mode of
engagement with its civil society colleagues, which has frequently
been destructive and alienating.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
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