[governance] Innovation

Tue Nov 27 05:59:12 EST 2007

Dear Kieren, dear Karl,

Your debate is passionate. It's normal. It deals with essential things :
political legitimacy, accountability, with basically the invention of a new,
more inclusive system at the international level. No small feat. No surprise
the solution is not obvious. The way forward can only be found through
identification of higher principles (or lower agreed protocols) and learning
from past mistakes.

Don't be upset by written words more than you would with spoken ones : you
could have this heated exchange in a face to face meeting and still be able
to move the discussion forward a bit. Actually we miss a good physical
exchange on this topic.

In that perspective, Karl, why don't you take Kieren's offer
seriously regarding the idea of a User Summit in Paris ? Why don't you work
together to set the stage for a good debate on that ? Different viewpoints
are not a problem but a richness, given the experience of people on this
list.

On substance, as Salman Rushdie is supposed to have said : "Only he who
steps out of the frame can see the whole picture". The frame here is whether
the original voting mechanism was better than the present ALAC. We can
discuss it endlessly. The whole picture is : how to ensure the particpation
of individuals. I have written in the past separately to Karl (or on the
list, I do not remember) regarding the role of individuals in a
multi-stakeholder process. I believe individuals have a fundamental role to
play, but that organizations do as well.

The traditional model to address issues at the global level is the
intergovernmental one, where individuals are represented by their government
(via their ambassador, or more and more often through lower-ranking civil
servants) : the United Nations is conceived as a democracy of nation-states,
not individuals. People who (legitimately) consider this approach
insufficiently democratic and inclusive, have a natural tendency to turn
towards the mechanism of elections and to extend it at the global level.

But is this really innovative ? Aren't we applying old models to a new,
larger scale problem ? Worse, aren't we equating a bit too fast democracy
with representative democracy; and representative democracy with elections ?
This is what many politicians have succeeded in making electors believe. But
elections is only one component and they can be manipulated. Here again, I'm
afraid that the question : how to hold elections at the global level is the
frame, not the whole picture. The whole picture is : what is democracy at
the scale of the globe or for a global issue ? What are the institutional
mechanisms that must be combined to produce participation and accountability
?

And in this respect, I fully agree, as often, with Avri : we need to play
with different building blocks (constituencies, SOs, ALAC, NomCom ....) and
find, through progressive refining, the proper balance. And innovation is
the key word : we are collectively trying to invent something a bit
different. Let's not jump too fast towards one single, proven mechanism as
if it were the only solution. It's about participation, not only
representation. Voting is delegation, and representation. I care about
participation. does not exclude voting, but it's not what it's all about.

Finally, I understand the argument about land owners and the historical
reference to people having to pay a certain amount to be able to vote,
thereby excluding some. But, and this is a big but, if a few euros is the
price to pay for a domain name, it seems a bit more acceptable than the high
levels instituted in the early days of representative democracy (even if a
few dollars can be more important in some countries than others). Second, if
large domainers are given the same vote as small domain owners, the risk of
capture is less important. Anyway, here again, the larger picture is : how
to identify individuals reliably and for what kind of voting procedures ? An
idea that could be tested : why not a new special gTLD for public
participation, the equivalent of an electoral list ? Or what about a social
networking site for ICANN's activities, with individual profiles ?

Let's keep the minds open and the discussion going. It's worth it.

Best

Bertrand

On 11/27/07, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:
>
> Kieren McCarthy wrote:
>
> > It is impossible for me to reply to this post without taking issue with
> huge
> > chunks of what's in it.
> >
> > Just as a quick example. These two sentences, stated as facts: "The
> ALAC's
> > failure is obvious. Internet users have shunned it in droves."
> >
> > This simply isn't true. But what's more problematic is that it has very
> > little to do with the issue of voting.
>
> You were a writer, a good one, I've seen you confront bad ideas.
>
> I claim (and firmly believe) that the ALAC is a failure.  Disprove me.
> Show how masses of people are running to it and that its processes
> actually form a force that can hold ICANN accountable for its actions.
> Show how it is a better vehicle for the formation of ideas and a seed
> for the formation of consensus than any group of people who might happen
> to gather in a non-ALAC, such as this one.
>
> I claim (and firmly believe) that people are shunning the ALAC in
> droves.  Disprove me.  Show how, even after years of existence, ICANN
> staff support, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of life support
> that, the number of people who are actually involved in the ALAC would
> fill more than the smallest of small rooms - as compared to the nearly
> 200,000 people who tried to sign up for ICANN's year 2000 elections.
>
> You claim that the ALAC has "little to do with voting".  If so, then how
> does one answer the fact that ICANN created the ALAC explicitly as a
> means to end the election of directors?
>
> On the other hand, ICANN holds the ALAC out as a reason why members of
> the internet community should be satisfied and not ask for voting.
>
> Thus, to my mind, the conclusion is quite the opposite, that, in fact,
> the ALAC has everything to do with voting, or rather, to be more
> precise, it has everything to do with non-voting.
>
>                --karl--
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-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exupéry
("there is no better mission for humans than uniting humans")
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