[governance] IGF Book

[linda misek-falkoff]

Greetings,

I just want to say thanks also, and am skimming, and appreciate Dan's
selections here as advance organizers.
Thank you much Wolfgang et al for putting this together, it is a true boon.

Best wishes, LDMF.
Dr. Linda D. Misek-Falkloff
*Respectful Interfaces*. (Programme of The Communications Coordination
Committee for the U.N.).


On 12/7/07, Dan Krimm <dan at musicunbound.com> wrote:
>
> At 9:38 AM +0100 12/7/07, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
> >Our IGF Book is now online.
> >
> >here is the URL
> >
> >http://medienservice.land-der-ideen.de/MEDIA/65534,0.pdf
>
>
> Thanks for this, I'm enjoying reading a few bits already.
>
> I think Bill Drake's chapter addresses a framework for action on some of
> the issues we've been hitting our heads against recently.  Nevertheless, I
> have a question for Bill.
>
> -----
>
> Bill, given the codification in your conclusion:
>
> "Transparency, inclusive participation, and coordination, to the
> extent practicable, ought to be regarded as comparatively anodyne
> principles on which the international community can readily
> agree. In fact, it already has. All that is needed now is to put
> in place a process to assess and promote their implementation."
>
> Are you sure that the apparent agreement here was not based implicitly
> upon
> an assumption by some that implementation might well be illusory?  That
> is,
> some folks might be perfectly happy to give lip service to high-flying
> moral principles as long as they don't have to actually do anything about
> it on the ground when they get home.
>
> We are quite familiar with that dynamic in politics in the US by now (it
> is
> common for legislation with high ideals to contain many compromises with
> regard to implementation and budget appropriation that were necessary to
> get political agreement, with the understanding that such provisions would
> systematically hamper the stated goals of the legislation -- it is well
> understood in political circles that implementation is "where the rubber
> hits the road" in public policy, and that there are opportunities to "have
> your cake (rhetorically) and eat it too (tangibly)").  I expect maybe
> elsewhere this dynamic has also been seen from time to time.  If so, the
> rhetorical agreement may not be as tangibly broad-ranging as you assume,
> even in principle (which can itself diverge from politically acceptable
> [i.e., vague] rhetoric).
>
> As I was not part of either WSIS or WGIG (and not really IGF either, other
> than seeing recent IGC discussions here and helping out with the IGC
> NomCom
> for Rio), I can't really attest firsthand to whether this agreement was
> more than rhetorical, and actually a substantive, principled aspect of the
> (political) values of the participants.
>
> There may even be people who *believe* that they hold these principles,
> but
> when push comes to shove they have very narrow ideas about who has
> standing
> to be included.  This is the trickiest area to navigate, because it
> involves people who think they are being inclusive when in fact they are
> being systematically restrictive.  I do think that getting specific about
> the definitions of these terms will help us define exactly what we are
> talking about (i.e., it will illuminate more of the underlying political
> values and conceptual frameworks of those participating), which is
> prerequisite to doing anything tangible about it, but in the process we
> might discover that there is somewhat less agreement than originally
> imagined.
>
> I would love to believe that your axiom here is true, but it is easy to
> have doubts.  If it is true, then of course it'd be fabulous for IGF to
> take it up systematically moving forward.  In fact, even if it is not
> true,
> IGF should still try, because in the process of addressing the details of
> "transparency, inclusive participation, and coordination" (you've
> certainly
> got *my* vote for that, and in the *broadest* way possible) any rhetorical
> posers will be exposed and publicly shamed.
>
> Dan
>
> PS -- I also must voice my explicit concurrence with Milton's
> chapter.  Alx
> likes to say that policy should be developed narrowly by focused
> institutions addressing "specific problem domains" and it seems to me that
> Milton is in conceptual agreement here by suggesting that we actually name
> those problems accurately and precisely in political terms, to the extent
> that these problems extend beyond purely technical considerations to
> matters of general political import.
>
> I went back and read Avri's chapter in the WGIG book recently, which was
> helpful to me in understanding the culture clash here, and it seems clear
> that the techie/politico terms of discourse are still "in flux" in terms
> of
> understanding one another.  By way of personal disclosure, while I've been
> involved with "online services" from an end-user application and content
> production standpoint since 1981, I'm really (and unapologetically) coming
> to the realm of IG primarily from a public policy/political stance.  And
> of
> course, I am also (and equally unapologetically) an *advocate* in a
> political sense (as, underneath it all, I believe we all are).
> ____________________________________________________________
> 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
>



-- 
Linda D. Misek-Falkoff, Ph.D., J.D.
N.B.: This is an individual and not an organizational post unless otherwise
stated or implied.
For I.D. only here:
Coordination of Singular Organizations on Disability (IDC Steering),and
director Persons Wiyth Pain Inl.,  for the Intl. Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabiliyties..
Persons With Pain International.  National Disability Party, International
Disability Caucus.
IDC-ICT Taskforce.
Respectful Interfaces* -  Communications Coordination Committee For The
United Nations;  CCC/UN Board Member and Secretary; Chr., Online Committee..
Vita Summary: <tbp>.
Other Affiliations on Request.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20071207/24ad1567/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: message-footer.txt
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20071207/24ad1567/attachment.txt>