AW: [governance] Can governmental powers be limited?

[Kleinwächter, Wolfgang]

Dear list,
 
Another five cents to the stimulating debate:
 
When Montesquieu and others developed the theory of the seperation of power to counter the absolutist power regime of the monarchies at this time, the argument was that the decision making power should be distributed to avoid misuse of absolute power and to have instruments to correct wrong decisions. 
 
In the late 1980s, when we changed the German Democratic Republic, there was a discussion about the "measurement of democracy". One proposed method was to meter the distance between the main powers: Parliament, Government, Judiciary and the Press. If you have long distances among the four powers, you have a high level of democracy. The level of democracy goes down if distances are narrowed. And if the parliament follows was the government says and if the courts decide and the press writes what the government wants - as it was the case in the German Democratic Republic - you have a dictatorship. 
 
What we can learn from this for Internet Governance? Decentralize power. 
 
What we need is a new Montesquieu for the Internet, a more detailed seperation of powers. The Multilayer Multiplayer Mechanism (or as Vint has labeled it the "Grand Collaboration") will work only on such a seperation of powers. Nobody has a decisions making capacity for the system as a whole, only for some parts. In some areas governments keep their decision making power, in other parts non-governmental stakeholders decide on their own premises. This is a step in the right direction. But it can go much further down the road. With regard to ICANN, would it make sense to decentralize further the relevant decision making power? Why not to give decision making capacity to SOs? Or to ACs? If decisons are made by GNSO and CNSO (and others, the main challenge for the Board would  be stimulate communication amonf the differetn decision making bodies and, where needed "to coordinate".  

Best

Wolfgang

 
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