[governance] Internet Governance Debate (Silence and Fatigue)

[William Drake]

Hi,

On 4/22/07 10:44 PM, "Milton Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> years). I've seen many an ICT policy issue come and go, and believe me
> the global governance arrangements around Internet and other ICTs are
> extremely meaty and no flash in the pan. Maybe to you it was no more
> than a passing wave to be caught, but not me.

>>>> jovank at diplomacy.edu 04/22/07 12:37 PM >>>
 
> You are right that IG is no longer on the radars of governments
> worldwide
> (if it ever was). There are many reasons for this. First--and the most
> important--is that the world has changed substantially between 2003,
> when IG
> was put on the WSIS agenda, and  2007.
> 
> Back in 2003, the IG-debate was, to a large extent, "collateral damage"
> of
> the Iraq war. Today, the situation has substantially changed. In the US,

When I first read Jovan's message, I like Milton thought, how the hell could
he say this?  International policy debates and action on IG significantly
predated WSIS, didn't stop when WSIS ended, and will continue far into the
future.  And the issues that divide governments and other stakeholders
internationally, not just on names and numbers but the whole host of IG
topics---IPR, security, civil liberties, e-commerce, etc--can't be reduced
to anti-Bush/American/war sentiment.  But perhaps there's a simple way to
square the two views.  What WSIS did was temporarily push IG up the agendas
of general foreign policy, so we got Condi Rice writing letters and so on,
and foreign ministries and people from the UN missions here in Geneva who'd
never worked on IG per se suddenly were spending time and energy on it.  Now
that the 'threat' of a 'UN takeover of core resources' and other
WSIS-related buzz has subsided and the focus has shifted back to the
internal processes of the various specialized IG mechanisms, the issues have
moved back down the bureaucratic chain within governments to the
agencies/ministries that are normally tasked with global ICT policy.  They
continue to negotiate with their counterparts in the relevant forums, but
without the nominal prospect of something big happening, there's less buzz
and the UN mission people are back in business as usual mode.  So I could
agree with Jovan if we reformulated "IG is no longer on the radars of
governments worldwide" as "IG has for the time being moved from being 'high
politics' attracting generalists in foreign ministries and agitating the
press and others back to being 'low politics.' involving specialists in
ministries of communication, the US Dept. of Commerce, etc."  Still on the
radar, but different.

Cheers,

Bill 



____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance