[bestbits] Multistakeholder or Democracy

[michael gurstein]

Tks Richard

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It is useful to look at the kind of views on global Internet governance that
have been expressed in WEF reports over the last few years. This is what an
analysis[2] of the WEF's Global Redesign Initiative (GRI) has to say about
the initiative:

"One of GRI's major recommendations is that experiences with
"multistakeholder consultations" on global matters should evolve into
"multi-stakeholder governance" arrangements. This transformation means that
non-state actors would no longer just provide input to decision-makers (e.g.
governments or multinational corporations) but would actually be responsible
for making global policy decisions...

"Their recommendations for multistakeholder governance include the
introduction of parallel meetings with the governing bodies of the WHO,
UNESCO, and FAO where non-state actors will hold independent sessions as a
complement to the official government meetings. GRI also recommends a second
new form of multi-stakeholder governance for conflict zones in developing
countries. They propose that the non-state actors, particularly the business
community, join with the UN system to jointly administer these conflict
zones.

"There are some sharp differences between "multistakeholder consultations"
and "multistakeholder governance", some of which are often blurred by the
loose use of the term "multistakeholder" ."

Multistakeholderism apparently is a new, post-democratic form of governance
which gives big business a major, institutionalised, political role and
authority. Multistakeholderism in this form is the preferred neoliberal
model of governance, whose application begins at the global level and with
Internet governance but is certainly meant to be taken to national levels as
well as to all sectors of governance. The plan is dead serious, with clear
calls for setting up multistakeholder organisations that will do
policy-making and governance. To quote the WEF's Global Agenda Council on
the Future of the Internet from GRI's final report[3]:

"This means designing multistakeholder structures for the institutions that
deal with global problems with an online dimension. Thus the establishment
of a multistakeholder institution to address such issues as Internet
privacy, copyright, crime and dispute resolution is necessary. The
government voice would be one among many, without always being the final
arbiter. And as ever more problems come to acquire an online dimension, the
multistakeholder institution would become the default in international
cooperation."

2[MG>]
http://www.umb.edu/gri/appraisal_of_wefs_perspectives_first_objective_enhanc
ed legitimacy/multistakeholderism

3 'Everybody's Business: Strengthening International Cooperation in a More
Interdependent World', pp. 317-21.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GRI_EverybodysBusiness_Report_2010.pdf