[governance] identity - an IG-related issue that crosses boundaries

[Bertrand de La Chapelle]

Dear Mawaki,

You wrote :

"If the difference in you mind is net and clear between those two
types of democracy ("the traditional representative of the industrial
age" and the "representative democracy (...) from the feudal and
monarchic regimes of the agricultural age"), please I would like to
hear about it, thanks."

Perhaps my english was not clear enough.

What I mean was that :
1) there was a transition from "the feudal and monarchic regimes of the
agricultural age" towards "representative democracy" when societies moved in
the industrial age (the transition was often painful : revolutions, etc...)
2) we are witnessing now (or should implement) another transition from this
"traditional representative democracy" towards a new - or additional -
participatory governance system (let's call it multi-stakeholder governance
for the moment) adapted to the information society and supported by the
internet.

A clear distinction criteria in my view between representative democracy and
this new participatory governance framework is that :
- representative democracy is "discrete" (in the mathematical sense of the
term), meaning people delegate deputies chosen every four-five years into a
Parliament and do not interact much in-between;
- whereas participatory governance is "continuous", ie allowing ongoing and
structured involvement of stakeholders in the deliberations on their issues
of interest.

Another element is that :
- representative democracy is fundamentally geography-based (with a strong
role for the level of the nation-state)
- participatory democracy can be geography-based but also issue-based,
gathering stakeholders from different regions concerned with the same issue,
as we experiment in the WSIS and IGF.

Final note : this transition does not mean that previous representative
democracy structures shoud be suppressed and merely replaced by new systems.
In many cases, the new participatory governance mechanisms will supplement
existing structures or make them work in a different manner. After all, we
are well placed in France to know that when electing our President, we are
simply using another way to choose a King (unfortuately :-) .

To make another analogy, Evolution allows the development of new species by
reusing the same DNA alphabet and genes through recombination and
cross-over. New species do not emerge - except in the (ill)intellignet
Design Theory - from scratch. Same for new governance frameworks : they
usually emerge by reconfiguring existing structures. After all, many
parliaments developped in Europe by empowering existing asemblies and
changing the way their members were chosen.

Hope it's clearer. Happy to explore further if you are interested.

Best

Bertrand



On 3/13/06, Mawaki Chango <ki_chango at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> A question Bertrand:
>
> --- Bertrand de La Chapelle <bdelachapelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 3/10/06, Garth Graham <garth.graham at telus.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > "in the longer term, "Internet governance is not about governance
> > 'of'
> > > the Internet. It's governance 'by' the Internet."
> >
> >
> > Actually, you could distinguish three different aspects :
> > - governance OF the Internet (the typical DNS and scarce resources
> > question)
> > - governance ON the Internet (rules and processes for activities
> > conducted
> > on the Internet)
> > - and, governance IN THE AGE of the Internet (or also TROUGH the
> > Internet
> > and other electronic tools)
> >
> > The later seems to me what you mean by governance BY the Internet.
> > But the
> > word "by" evokes a submission to the instrument rather than the
> > empowerment.
> > You probably could also say governance VIA the Internet or even
> >  "Internet-supported governance".
> >
> > This broader dimension addresses how the emergence of the global
> > network is
> > giving birth to a new global polity. This polity needs governance
> > mechanisms
> > as different from the traditional representative democracy of the
> > industrial
> > age as representative democracy itself was from the feudal and
> > monarchic
> > regimes of the agricultural age.
>
> If the difference in you mind is net and clear between those two
> types of democracy ("the traditional representative of the industrial
> age" and the "representative democracy (...) from the feudal and
> monarchic regimes of the agricultural age"), please I would like to
> hear about it, thanks.
>
> Mawaki
>
>
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