[bestbits] Logistical note for Best Bits meeting participants

[Avri Doria]

On 18 Oct 2013, at 18:14, michael gurstein wrote:

> I've been following these and associated discussions for some time now and
> this is the first time that I've ever seen the association that you are
> making below, Avri, between MSism and Participatory Democracy in fact when
> the subject has been discussed at all, my sense was that most MS advocates
> treated democracy in whatever manifestation with some contempt.


To me, such a discussion is an example of a category mistake - comparing a part to the whole.

Representative Democracy, aka Indirect democracy, is just one form of democracy; though I do admit that these days when there is so little representative democracy in this world that is easy to forget - as citizens continue to strive everywhere to get at least that much from their ruling regimes.  At the other end of the scale in Direct Democracy, something that has long been considered an impossible goal in large scale movements - though something I think becomes possible as an universal, open& free, secure and private Internet is achieved - but this a ways away yet.

Participatory democracy, in my opinion, falls somewhere in the middle and includes elements of both of the other forms of democracy.  Ever since I got involved in Internet governance activities, before I know the term Internet governance, I have viewed participatory democracy as the evolving form we were engaged in.

There is no contempt for democracy. For my part, however, there is a belief that it does not go far enough in representing me as a citizen, a netizen, an advocate, a technical person, etc.  It does not go far enough in representing the aspects of my being beyond those of a body living in a constrained geographical space.  Another problem many of us with national representatives being in charge is that the bureaucrats that fill the spots in Internet governance, nice and dedicated though they may be, are a second derivative of indirect democracy, i.e. they are even more indirect.  They are often life time agency workers whose accountability to the demos is tenuous at best - though their boss may indeed be appointed by the elected representatives. Those who represent nations in Internet governance are, at best, accountable their boss, who is hopefully accountable (think of Yes, Minister examples here) to someone who may be accountable to election.

Another element is that the stakeholders, for want of a better term, are groups in their own right that should be democratic and accountable.  Sometimes this may be done by representative democratic means, e.g. when the group is small enough or organized enough to scale elections.  Sometimes it may be direct democracy, or at least partially so in being open and accessible to all.  In most cases, a form of participatory democracy suited to the nature of the group will be the best option.

In this view, the multistakeholder model has always been a way to develop participatory democracy or at least one form of participatory democracy.  I don't say it works perfectly in terms of access, accountability and transparency but in many of the cases before us it works to a limit that needs to always be pushed forward.

So it someone tells me that national bureaucrats, with an occasional High Level Summit, are good enough to make the ITU  or something like it democratic, yes, I will think that inappropriate and may show some contempt for the argument.  But if you tell me that some of the equal  partners in multistakeholder Internet governance are representative democracies, whether that is on a national geographic scale or a more local or non geographic scale, I will think that is one of the appropriate ways for subsidiary democracy to work itself out.

Now back to sleep so I am ready for tomorrow's meeting - been sleeping on and off since i arrived in Bali 12 hours ago.

avri

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