[governance] .xxx. igc and igf

[Milton Mueller]

>>> drake at hei.unige.ch 4/17/2007 3:32 AM >>>
>Tackling IG through a meta-convention
>would be a very modernist response to a postmodern condition, 
>like trying to depict in a single point perspective painting a reality

>that can only be visualized with a hologram.

I wish I could convey how amusing you all sound, 
lost in your metaphors of "new" kaleidoscopic realities. In the
meantime, the same old power holders, using the same old mechanisms and
a few subtle new ones, are running the game. And some of us in civil
society are soooooo easily co-opted by being invited onto consultative
mechanisms like WGIG or ALAC that have no effect on the actual regime
but somewhow make people feel important and thereby transform them into
enthusiastic free workrs and sometimes apologists for the institutions
that have duped them. 

>IG broadly defined is too heterogeneous and
>institutionally distributed for a singular negotiated framework, and
any

No one said a FC is going to deal with any and every aspect of IG. The
problem to be solved is the relationship between public policy issues
and states. An FC can, and should, delegate or leave alone many things,
thereby helping to resolve many of the legitimacy and competing claims
for authorty. 

>Conversely, focusing on IG narrowly
>defined around core resources would be simply become the oversight 
>debate redux and lead into the same cul de sac.  

The only cul de sac is the intransigence of the USG, and we are going
to have a new administration most likely.

>There's also the antecedent
>problem that key parties would be opposed to even discussing this 
>for fear they would lose control of the dialogue.

That is indeed a problem, but its a political problem and you don't
solve it by conceding defeat off the bat. Political constraints are
amenable to political agitation.

>Multi-issue, multi-player multi-preference negotiations frequently is
not 
>a formula for consequential agreements.

This argyument has some validity, i.e. is a real source of concern, but
can you say we have never developed an environmental framework....oops,
I guess we did. Well, I guess that explains why the WTO was never able
to negotiate a free trade agreement on telecomms and IT
equipment...oops, I guess they did that, too. No, it is just a question
of political will.

>  Plus, where would you do it, there's no
>appropriate forum for such a negotiation, much less an appropriate
mechanism
>to monitor and promote compliance with commitments.  

An FC creates one. This is not a real argument.

>Personally, I think this is a chimera and a distraction.

That is my attitude toward the IGF, increasingly. Can you tell me why
holding a conference and chatting with ourselves is such a brilliant
solution, and what problem it is a solution to? 


>Where I think he and I might disagree is that I'd
>favor having some means of holistic monitoring/analysis that'd draw
>attention to the connections and possible conflicts between these so
>adjustments could be made etc. 

But that's what the Forum was supposed to do. And if the political will
is not there to do something real about these governance issues, then
the Forum can't work any more than a FC. So you are led back to the
proposition that we must advocate some form of governance
institution-building that is REAL, not a co-optation mechanism or a way
of sidelining and neutralizing actual debate over substance.

> That was part of the original thinking
>behind the forum concept, at least for some of us, but if the forum
can't
>play this role something else is needed.

In other words, you admit that the oh so sophisticated "post modern"
approach has failed, but we should try it again? 

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