[governance] Reconstituting MAG (Tech/admin language)

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 20 févr. 08 à 19:02, William Drake a écrit :

> On 2/20/08 4:53 PM, "Meryem Marzouki" <marzouki at ras.eu.org> wrote:
>
>> Is it that, in the end, you are of the opinion that ICANN and other
>> members of the so-called "technical community" are CS organizations,
>> and thus should be counted as such in terms of number of members of
>> the MAG?
>>
>> I'm also asking the same question to Bill and Adam. And Suresh. I
>
> [...]
> Two questions follow: 1) are they properly "stakeholders," and if  
> so should
> they be "allocated" slots alongside the traditional three on the  
> same basis.
> Your position I guess is no, full stop.

Not "full stop". I support a statement which currently says: "We also  
agree that International organizations [...] should continue to be  
represented in the MAG. However, their representation should not be  
at the expense of broader civil society participation." Clear enough,  
unless one persists in equating, for whatever reason of his/her own,  
"not of the same nature thus not in the same position" to: "get out  
from here".

> Mine is that if you think beyond
> ICANN (I know it's hard, but it can be done) to the much broader  
> galaxy of
> bodies that do admin things, it's not quite obvious on what basis  
> one could
> say that they all don't have stakes in gov decisions, but we do.

ICANN included, they have interests, they have stakes, they have  
expertise. But they're not stakeholders in the UN sense. Parts of  
them, or individuals within them, or companies within them, or  
governments within them, perfectly fit in any of the three  
stakeholders group. But not them as organizations.

> 2) Beyond AB staff and leadership there is the vaster galaxy of  
> people who
> work in these spaces, identify with them, etc.

I've repeatedly said, as other did, that there's no problem with  
these people, as such. And I've certainly never said, nor thought,  
that this is an issue of paychecks. With this reasoning - which is  
completely irrelevant - I would myself count for gov. As a civil  
servant (academic working in a public research institute), I get my  
paycheck from the government. So what? I'm not even discussing on  
this list - nor have I spent almost 5 years chairing a WSIS CS caucus  
- in my professional capacity, but rather as part of my volunteering  
activity representing a (not funded, and explicitely refusing funding  
-- this is to answer in advance Suresh's general concerns on this  
issue, which I share) NGO or sometimes in informal discussions as an  
individual. The issue is not who pays your salary. But who funds you  
to explicitely represent it.

> Moreover, one might note that as a practical matter, and as I  
> pointed out
> the other night, you are then insisting that a whole lot of people  
> who do
> not identify with or agree with us (to the extent we have any common
> denominators ourselves) are CS, which presumably means that they  
> should be
> allocated "CS seats."

Being CS doesn't mean agreeing, as anyone may have understood. Same  
for governments, BTW. Same for business, when their interests are  
conflicting (and they do many times).

> And since there are far far more of them than us, and
> they often play direct roles in net matters and have standing with  
> all the
> relevant power centers, your reclassification would highlight in  
> technicolor
> that IGC members and fellow travelers are a very very small portion  
> of the
> CS that has stakes in IG and that the IGF should pay attention to.

Yes. You seem not taking into account the wider CS (there is a real  
world out there).

>   To take
> one example, ISOC says it has 28,000 individual members in over 90  
> chapters
> around the world, a great many of whom are CS per you.  IGC has  
> like 50
> members.  So what principle should the SG follow in deciding among  
> these and
> other CS claimants?  Contrary to my back and forth with Parminder  
> the other
> day, it would certainly not be up to us to decide which of such  
> people "CS"
> can nominate.  We're complaining now that only 5 o 7 of our  
> nominees are on
> the mAG.  If you get what you're asking for, the SG would be quite  
> correct
> in giving us like 1 and splitting the others among other CS groups.

This is what I referred to in previous message (answering you  
actually, I think) by: "the very paradox (or is it the original sin?)  
of the IGF (and, before IGF, WGIG): participants, starting from MAG  
members, are supposed to be participating in their individual  
capacity, while at the same time being selected as "representatives"  
of a given stakeholder." And why do you acknowledge that ISOC have a  
weight of 28,000, while considering, say, Parminder as one rather  
than the n ITfC members or Karen as one rather than the m APC members  
(and members of members) number? If we follow your reasoning, why  
accepting that some CS MAG members nominated by the IGC are only  
individuals, not representing any organization? This reasoning is not  
sound. Moreover, you're analyzing long term political  
reconfigurations in simplistic tactic terms. This doesn't mean  
anything. If it was only a question of simple tactics, then ISOC  
would have stuffed this caucus list with ISOC-friendly people and  
they would have been set. Don't you understand that real stakes are  
elsewhere, and not only for ISOC? Most notably in official and long  
term wide recognition of the so-called "technical community" as a  
stakeholder in the same way as the three usual and natural  
stakeholders? Of course, this doesn't prevent to stuff this caucus  
and other lists with one's own people, as this might help in daily  
housekeeping or simply information to feel the overall mood.

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