[governance] Re: Four legs good, two legs bad

[Milton Mueller]

>>> patrick at vande-walle.eu 12/11/2006 5:41 AM >>>
>Once you go to the international level, it has been widely 
>accepted for several centuries that the interests of the citizens 
>are represented by their government (even the non-
>democratic ones). This is called diplomacy. 

Patrick, for the past two decades a deluge of literature in political
science, international relations and international political economy has
been documenting changes in, and the inadequacies of, what you consider
to be "widely accepted for several centuries." Suggest doing some
homework.

>I still fail to understand the rationale on why the Internet 
>should be treated any different way than, say, bananas, 
>meat or steel exports. 

This is obvious. Three things. First, it's a service, not a physical
commodity; second, and much more importantly, its architecture, resource
assignment and administration are (by default) transnational. Changing
this would require a huge shift in political, economic and technical
arrangements and it is not clear that this would make things any better
and a number of reasons to think it would make things worse. Third,
there is no single existing intergovernmental organization where these
things can be handled. 

Or should I interpret your position that you think this could all be
put into the ITU? If not there, where? If you think a new IGO should be
created to handle this, well, you're back at square one, circa 1997,
aren't you? If you think responsibility should be fragmented across
multiple IGOs, then you confront the problem that led to the creation of
IGF. 


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