AW: [governance] stakeholders vs. natural individuals

[Mawaki Chango]

> Hmm, perhaps I have not articulated my point adequately.

And perhaps the problem comes from the fact (at least as I read
it) that from a critique of ICANN's practices you take on a
broader critique of the concept itself, which might have broader
effects that may not be relevant to your purpose. Which might be
better served by delineating/defining more specifically your
concept and/or context (taking into account the new context
created by WSIS) and stick to that throughout. In other words,
maybe your critique shouldn't be that of a concept, but that of
the ICANN use of it. Otherwise, as I read you about stakeholder
in the broader context (as in "multi-stakeholder") following are
some additional thoughts.

Yes, stake should not be (exclusively) translated into "property
rights, financial and profit-generating assets." In the name of
the end-to-end principle of the Internet, at least, the end user
obviously has a stake in IG matters, too. I'm just not sure
whether the origin of the current situation is nominal
("stakeholder" a wrong label?) or conceptual rather than
political (internal governance of a corporation that has
political attachment, etc.) 

So we can only agree if the purpose here is to warn against the
ever growing tendency of the current main IG institution to
trump the public and end-user's interests with the corporate and
industry's. But beyond that, I am afraid it quickly might become
an impractical ambition. 

Unless we want to use IG to tell governments around the world to
make more use of deliberative democracy, and to be more
accountable to and more representative of their individual
citizens..., which, for someone who would like to see IG focused
only on very technical matters far from public policy and
politics, would be quite an ambition, one must admit. So far as
the Westphalian modern state (nation-state) is the main/dominant
political actor in national and international rulemaking,
coercion and enforcement, national governments will still be
around, claiming more or less legitimately to represent the
people they rule. And as you suggest, businesses may also claim
some level of accountability toward, and a different type of
"representation" (than political) of, their shareholders. Note,
the incorporated CSOs may also have the same claim of
accountability and representativity of their membership and
constituencies.

 So again, we agree that ICANN board members should be more
sensible, in the decision they make, to the individual users
(and broader public interest) and feel accountable to them as
well (at least.) But IMO, that is a corporate governance issue,
not a problem with the notion of "stakeholder" as understood in
"multistakeholder". If the contrary, we will have to tell the
governments to bring the individual citizens, and to businesses
to bring the individual shareholders at the table (just as when
CS comes together as a global stakeholder, they may include
non-affiliated individuals.) Though that might be a wonderful
thing, it didn't seem to me that that was what you/we are after
(i.e. a global reform for a new political, economic and social
order!) So maybe it's better to focus on the organizational
arrangements (to be embedded in istitutional design) that would
make a body like ICANN or its successor more responsive to the
individuals' needs and broader public interest -- instead of the
critique of a "concept" that is (now) used largely beyond ICANN
and would require a more complex argumentation.

Mawaki 
(who also romanticizes sometimes but preferably not while
looking back at history, with no guarantee of success ;-))


--- Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

> Mawaki Chango wrote:
> > All this is a little bit too romantic...
> 
> Hmm, perhaps I have not articulated my point adequately.
> 
> I'm not looking for Athenian democracy, far from it.
> 
> Rather I'm trying to prevent the opposite - the pre-ordained
> choosing 
> (by whom?) of "stakeholders" that have built-in, fixed,
> permanent seats 
> of power and authority.
> 
> Unless there is a period re-evaluation of whether aggregations
> actually 
> express the opinions of the people who form them, those
> aggregations 
> become detached from any reality except themselves.
> 
> There are not many national governments that overtly claim
> that they are 
> constructed on the principle that for-profit aggregations run
> the show; 
> most governments still retain the appearance of people
> electing 
> representatives to the governments they live under.
> 
> And even for-profit corporations give shareholders a vote for
> directors, 
> to vote on important measures and, if enough shareholders
> agree, to even 
> on occasion, to supersede the board of directors.
> 
> So I am not really convinced that occasional recourse to
> living, 
> breathing people is all that much of a romantic notion.
> 
> And if it is such a notion, then I am proud to be a romantic.
> 
> The larger question is why we have chosen to so quickly
> abandon the idea 
> that people have no place in internet governance?
> 
> As for the point of ICANN - You are right that it is more than
> ICANN's 
> erasure of elections that has caused it to become a
> combination in 
> restraint of trade and an impediment to internet innovation. 
> It is also 
> the fact that for some reason the many seated directors have
> chosen to 
> treat their seats as honorific positions on an advisory panel
> rather 
> than as the representatives of the public interest who have a
> strong, 
> fiduciary obligation to that interest.  How do we cure that? 
> The answer 
> is not nominating committee that pick the least of the least
> prickley. 
> Rather it is elections that allow the public to throw the
> incumbents out 
> on their bums and install people who understand that they are
> the 
> plenary authorities on their body of governance.
> 
> 		--karl--
> 
> 
> 



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