[governance] What happened at the NARALO/ALAC/CCNSO?

[Milton L Mueller]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jacqueline A. Morris [mailto:jam at jacquelinemorris.com] 
>
>That Milton, is one of the things that we have to accept in a bottom-up
>process that gives the users the power. They may decide to do things
that
>you, me, others don't agree with. But if a lot more of them vote to
spend
>energy and resources for the Summit and none for the .us contract, than
the
>ones who vote the other way, that's the democratic process.

No, Jacky, that's not "democracy" that's "freedom of association," which
is something I strongly favor but has little relevance to the issue of
how users are represented in global governance of ICANN issues. This
freedom of assocation doesn't give "users the power" over anything
except what to do with their own time and resources -- a freedom they
already have anyway. They don't need ALAC for that. 

The issue you are studiously ignoring is this: if ALAC is there to give
ICANN user perspectives on actual policy choices that ICANN has to make,
and if ALAC consistently does not do that, what are we to conclude?

A number of conclusions are possible. One is that the people who are
attracted to ALAC are not all that interested in the day to day issues
of ICANN policy making but in other things... Another is that the
structure of ALAC tends to encourage its members to do other things than
pay attention to detailed policy issues, because the rewards for those
other activities are perceived to be higher. Another is that ALAC-ers
don't feel that they can really influence the specific policy issues on
which comment is possible, so they choose not to do so and concentrate
their time on things they feel they can control.

I don't know which of these is right, if any, but would be interested in
your perspective.  

--MM
____________________________________________________________
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