[governance] Re: AW: outcomes of CSTD Bureau meeting

[David Allen]

I appreciate Jeanette's wise observation below.

The German political philosopher Max Weber gave some comfort, it seems, to come to grips with the scenario - he pointed at a common progression, from charismatic leadership to routinized bureaucracy.  When understood as a process, not unexpected, the essence becomes attention to the details of routinization, from leader to bureaucracy. 

Writ large, this particular case is the expansion of power-sharing, from among just governments to a new world where other societal actors have some say also.  As such, it is not a small thing. 

As said any number of times before, CS's ability to present itself as a model for power sharing, in its own structure and behavior, will likely be prerequisite.  Those with the power currently, who naturally are skeptical, may then have basis to consider partnering and further steps along the progression.

Nor will we want to miss an irony:  The occasion for innovation is in the early part.  Once we get to routine bureaucracy, we have to wait - if we want more change - until the next revolution ...  It pays to get it thoughtfully right, of course through some experimentation, particularly early on, as we go through.  Representation, legitimacy, and the like, are not-small problematics.

Such progressions have their own genesis in a real issue.  Here (at least one part) that is the simmering tension around globalization of rule-setting for some key Internet stuff.  The drivers for that will not go away, if anything they will grow even more insistent.  The pressures for action on this larger front could make it more difficult to work artfully on the nearer-in front (call both 'power distribution' - but each with its own circumstance).

And there is also a recursive quality to the logic.  The same progression will likely characterize both foreground and background.  Again then, movement in one can confound prospects in the other, though fortunately that does not have to be.

David

At 12:33 PM +0200 5/25/07, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>...
>What I realized only the last two days here in Geneva is how very fragile this whole process still is. The entire preparatory process with several open consultations, an advisory group, Nitin's and Markus' reports to New York and various back and forth interactions cannot be taken for granted. There are several groups who would like to replace this very informal process by something more constitutionalized. Among them certainly some countries such as Russia and China and also some civil society people or groups.
>
>On a principle level, I would always argue for a more formal, rule driven process. The reason would be that in the long run I think one should never solely rely on the personal integrity of the people involved. Nitin and Markus might not be around forever, and we will probably fully realize only afterwards how much this whole process owes to them. Rules may serve as a safety net against all kinds of undesirable behavior.
>
>On a practical level, things look slightly different. A formalization of the process at this point implies the danger of killing it altogether. It is anyone's guess how small or large this danger is. My sense is that the forum and its preparatory process will eventually become more formalized. However, like the forum itself, this could happen as an experimental process where things can be tried out like, for example, new membership mechanism as Avri suggested. We need to keep in mind though that governments, international organizations, private sector and civil society governments all have different recruiting practices with various rationalities involved, and that it won't be easy to find some common ground here.
>
>I would thus argue for a slow pace if possible to avoid dammaging this precious new process and to give it a chance to come with innovative solutions to old procedural problems (representation, legitimacy, transparency, accountability, etc, etc) that would find support among all the actors involved.
>
>jeanette
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