[governance] Distractions

[Milton Mueller]

>>> ajp at glocom.ac.jp 4/6/2007 1:08 PM >>>
>Agree 100%.  One of the tragedies of xxx is the amount of time 
>wasted.  Shame it continues to distract when the next IGF 
>consultation is about 6 weeks away.

Adam, I burst out laughing when I read this. Whatever position you take
on .xxx, it is clear that the decision rationales, the process
surrounding it, and the implications for future actions in Internet
governance far outweigh anything that will happen at any IGF. Look at
the breadth of the debate it has stimulated, ranging from the
relationship between identifiers and content regulation to the role of
cultural conflicts in internet governance to issues of process and
participation. If you don't think this issue is important and
interesting you'd better get out of the IG business. 

The important thing about .xxx or any new TLD proposal is that it is an
area where the governance institution we are participating in actually
holds power, actually makes decisions that affect what happens on the
internet. IGF has no comparable authority.

Most of what happens in these multistakeholder consultations is little
more than window dressing that creates some kind of appearance of input
and consultation while the real decisions are made somewhere else. Yes,
I agree (as a professional educator) that there is value in these
talkfests, there is some "soft power," but to say that we should
blithely ignore the implications of a real decision to concentrate on
talking at IGF is unpersuasive. The .xxx decision promises to set in
place new global mechanisms for semantics-based censorship of what
labels can be used, and indicates a new and lawless form of national
state intervention in ICANN's affairs -- a role that is being accepted
with alacrity by the same people (like Sadowsky) who, during WSIS,
warned us of the horrors of a "UN Takeover of the Internet. 

Whos is "distracting" whom?

And in that vein, I would respond to Jeremy's complaint about ignored
iinput in IGF with some basic political-science. We have been through
the same thing, and made all the same complaints as you, during the
early stages of the ICANN process. A realist can only conclude that what
matters in these processes is not primarily the quality of the ideas but
the amount of power held by the advocates. If you are not, as one of my
public interest advocacy friends in Washington is fond of saying, in a
position to inflict (political) pain or confer benefits ($$$) on the
decision makers, chances are you will be ignored.  I'm not saying that's
a good thing. I'm saying that's the way things are.

And so, given those facts, it is unrealistic to expect anything more
from these multistakeholder consultations than what you have got. 

>From a higher-level, longer term perspective, this means that people in
civil society have got to stop promiting "multistakeholderism" as such.
MS by itself is not all that meaningful unless it involves a formal
realignment of righs and representation at the global level. If
political actors have no formally defined powers and rights with respect
to each other, and if there is no formally defined process for making
decisions, why should you expect people engaged in high-stakes political
and economic games to change their behavior in any substantial way? 


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