[governance] Going forward - Role of the governance caucus

[Milton Mueller]

>>> Wolfgang Kleinwächter <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> >One natural difficulty is certainly that CS risks to end up like the 
>EU: Hours of multilateral consultations behind closed doors and 
>finaly a statement with ten lines, representing the "consensus" 
>on the lowest level. Such an input would not lead to impact 
 
This is an important question. Lacking time, I can only say that I agree more with Brett than with Wolfgang and Jeanette when it comes to arriving at common positions on policy issues of substance. IG Caucus should NOT attempt to develop common policy statements but should simply facilitate convergence of opinion within CS to whatever degree it can. 

Deliberation within the caucus will allow us to find areas of agreement, providing some aggregation of voices, but there is no reason to force that deliberation into ONE opinion or statement, and claim for it the voice of "civil society." Such a claim would be illegitimate in any case. 

Also, from a practical standpoint If you try to arrive at one statement, one opinion, you will end up with the EU situation Wolfgang decscribes above.

However, I think we need a caucus structure with the capacity to appoint people to posts, and in doing so we will tacitly represent opinions. This is in fact a more flexible way to aggregate opinion than writing joint statements.

For example, I might never agree with Parminder on certain policy position statements, but I would easily accept him as a legitimate CS representative from India and see his views as representing a subtantial segment of opinion within CS. (and I hope he would have a reciprocal view). 





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