[governance] Interent community, internet users, and the people (was RE: [NA-Discuss] ALAC and NCUC)

[Jeremy Malcolm]

Guru at ITfC wrote:
> In this sense it is difficult to not think of the people of the world as the
> constitutency for IG. All are equally stakeholders to the possibilities of
> the information society that we "are building". The current 'users' who are
> still in a minority (microscopic minority in many countries) represent the
> most previleged section of humanity on many considerations and can at best
> be 'trustees' for the rest and cannot abrogate any special previleges to
> themselves. I would interpret "However in many, perhaps most issue areas,
> existing Internet users will be the most directly affected and thus have the
> strongest claim to be heard" in this light. 

I don't dissent from the thrust of what you and Parminder have said in 
your responses.  All I am saying, and I apologise if I didn't say it 
clearly, is that in the discussion of any IG issue, all impacted 
stakeholders should be empowered to collaborate in policy development, 
but that exactly *which* stakeholders are so impacted will vary from one 
issue to another, and therefore the weight that should legitimately be 
accorded to their input will vary accordingly.

The question of what weight should be accorded to those potentially 
affected *in the future* is not an uncommon one.  In environmental law, 
in particular, consideration is given to the interests of future 
generations.  This is closely analogous to the approach to be taken in 
IG in respect of non-users.  However, should non-users be consulted on 
all IG issues, including those that are never likely to affect them and 
about which they and those who speak for them have no knowledge or 
experience?

Whilst Parminder may have taken issue with my example of participation 
in the IETF, standards development is just as much a part of IG as 
technical coordination and public policy development.  I agree that 
standards development is a sphere of governance that concerns him, and 
his constituents, and probably us all, less than other spheres that more 
often and directly engage public policy issues.  But this does mean that 
*in general*, the IETF can legitimately give less weight to the input of 
non-users, by failing to specifically provide for the solicitation of 
their views in its processes (with some exceptions, eg. multilingualism).

Which leads on the two basic approaches that an IG organisation can take 
in dealing with the fact that some people are more directly and more 
often engaged by the issues within its remit than others.  The first 
approach is to make a rough guess as to who is and is not engaged by the 
issues that you are discussing, divide them into stakeholder groups, and 
institutionalise their representation within the organisation in the way 
that ICANN has (or by holding meetings in locations, or using 
technologies, that exclude stakeholders with no legitimate interest). 
The problems with this approach are:

(a) You might be wrong; how do you know who will be impacted by the
     issues you are considering?  And Karl's concern: how can you
     legitimately box people into stakeholder groups?

(b) The process by which the decision is made may not be open,
     transparent, or subject to input by all those potentially affected.
     (Hello, ICANN!)

(c) It is inflexible, in that novel issues may arise that impact upon
     new stakeholders, and the organisation has no way in which their
     input may be formally received without restructuring itself.

The second way of dealing with the fact that some people have more at 
stake than others in particular IG issue areas is by making the 
organisation completely open to all stakeholders who wish to 
participate, but by determining the weight that their contributions are 
to be accorded by subjecting their views to a process of reasoned public 
deliberation.  This is my (forlorn) vision for the IGF.

Since writing the above I've just read Bertrand's latest post, and it 
would be superfluous for me to cover the same ground here, but I think 
the above analysis adds to it slightly by illustrating the distinction 
between *representative* democracy (the first case given above) and 
*deliberative* democracy (the second case, about which I write a lot 
more in my thesis).

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'
____________________________________________________________
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