[governance] WSIS, ICT4D, the IGF and other...

[Garth Graham]

Someone on this list once identified the only true TLD as "the  
individual."  I found that to be a a very useful notion (does anyone  
remember who said it?).  Recently I've seen two of those deep  
background posts, largely ignored, that caused me to reflect on what  
that notion might mean.

In a posting to this list, Feb 18th (see below), Mike Gurstein  
identified a partially contested and overlapping policy space or  
continuum running from Internet Governance on the one hand to the  
uses of ICTS for development (ICT4D) on the other.    He also noted  
that, while the IGF has a "measure of mission creep into the ICT4D  
space," ICT4D really "needs to have its own policy forum."  In the  
art of scenario construction, such continuums map key drivers of  
change - in this case capacity for evolving development policy  
appropriate to the role of the Internet in the daily life of a  
Digital Age.  We can ask the question - where does a person or agency  
(i.e. a stake holder) fit on that continuum?

Then in a similar vein, there was a posting  by JCF Morfin on the  
same day on the ALAC list (which. when I noted it to him, Mike called  
for a "synchronicity alert").

Morfin identified (among other things) a different continuum of  
possible policy interaction over Internet governance running from  
"unilateralism" (where ICANN/IETF is "singular" and based on an  
"Internet community") to "multilateralism" (where the WSIS/IGF is  
"plural" and based on five poles: civil society, private sector,  
regalian domain, international entities, and technical/normative  
community).  In his description, ICANN sees the Internet as a "single  
network of networks" with a decentralized architecture and  
governance, while the WSIS sees the Internet as "people centric" and  
calls for a diversity of networks of the network of networks that  
"demands" a "distributed architecture" and a "distributed governance  
(intergovernance)."

If I am interpreting him correctly, the driver of change mapped by  
this continuum would be the way that the imagined mode of governance  
defines network mission.

Morfin then finds that the ALAC, as a "distributed organization" is  
the key to ICANN's necessary evolution towards "distributed  
governance (intergovernance)."  He says, "ALAC is now here, but not  
ready yet. It is for ICANN the only and proper tool, to interface the  
IGF and advise the BoD as to how to steer in shallow waters where the  
majority would like to get rid of ICANN."  Of particular importance  
is the role that the ALAC's partner ALSs can play to "inform their  
local community" so that technical solutions to strategic issues  
"will locally emerge."  Even given my appreciation of the distance  
we'll have to go to get there, I sympathize with his faith in the  
ALACs future possible utility.

For the full text of Morfin's post see:  <http://atlarge- 
lists.icann.org/pipermail/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org/ 
2008q1/002963.html>

I became curious to see what might be revealed about the future of  
organizational interactions in Internet Governance by axially mapping  
these two continuums against each other. I attach the graphic I  
produced to do this as a pdf file below.   I gave it the title, "The  
only true TLD is the Individual," because, in effect, the graphic  
illustrates a scenario, and that's a good title for a possible  
future.  My primary conclusion from this analysis is that we are  
defining the necessary stake holders in Internet Governance far too  
narrowly.  In effect, we are looking inwardly towards the  
institutions we inhabit, rather than outwardly into society where the  
true picture of impact will emerge.  And thus we underestimate or  
ignore the essential public consciousness raising about the  
Internet's role in change that will be required to get to that  
future.  What is now a closed process must become an open process.   
For example, Vint Cerf recently said that agencies using ICTs for  
social change have an essential role in “communicating the meaning of  
the Internet's evolution in the context of a collaborative ecology.”   
Good point that!

This next part  of this note is going to seem like a segue at first.   
But it will allow me to add in my own key driver - the nature and  
role of community online.  On first coming into the Internet, it was  
apparent to me that distributed collaboration in community online was  
becoming a significant factor in social organization.  I still see no  
reason to alter that faith.  Morfin challenged his readers to supply  
their own visions.  Here is mine ...

Effective communities are composed of individuals who choose to act  
in a common space and who share a sense of commitment and  
responsibility to others in that space.  Communities are dynamic and  
self-organizing.  This is the basis of their formation and  
governance.  Acting to realize the opportunities of community as it  
goes online requires a vision of open systems of access, design,  
practice, and policy debate. The internet as designed expresses that  
vision directly.  The internet is a global commons and a public good  
that mirrors the governance of community online.  It is fundamental  
to the networked structure of a Learning Society.  Changes to  
internet governance should not impede the development of the internet  
as a commons.

Here are two recent posts to the IGC list that, for me, illustrate  
the difficulties of getting the idea of Internet as a commons and  
Internet Governance as collaborative ecology into the main stream.

> From: 	  ronda.netizen at gmail.com
> Subject: 	Re: [governance] main themes
> Date: 	February 19, 2008 7:16:49 PM PST
> To: 	  governance at lists.cpsr.org, parminder at itforchange.net
> 	
> I suggest you try to include a theme on netizens - on the Internet  
> as a support for grassroots democracy and participation in  
> governance issues.  Somehow this all seems to get left out.


> From: 	  parminder at itforchange.net
> Subject: 	RE: [governance] main themes
> Date: 	February 21, 2008 2:28:05 AM PST
> To: 	  ronda.netizen at gmail.com, governance at lists.cpsr.org
>
> Ronda .... Personally I will like you to think of replacing the  
> term 'netizens' because it may look like giving too much of a  
> techie spin to the theme (I know you do not mean it like that).


The word "netizen" is useful in altering our assumptions about that  
other word that pre-occupies us, "governance."  ICANN has said,  
"ICANN – in deference to its public trust – will continue to  
collaborate with these CITIZENS OF THE INTERNET COMMUNITY to advance  
the notions of a unique root system as a prerequisite to Internet  
stability, and to ensure that community-based policies take  
precedence. "    <http://www.icann.org/icp/icp-3.htm>  But, that  
statement is a good example of the inwardness I mentioned.  If the  
only true TLD is the individual, then everyone is a citizen or  
netizen of the internet community.  If everyone is a netizen, how can  
that be merely technical?  And, if someone chooses to self-identify  
as a netizen, then respect requires the acceptance of the legitimacy  
of that voice.  Being inclusively multi-anything requires listening  
to and respecting how other people identify themselves.

Risking an open and outward voice in a Digital Age will require that  
we speak to a different view about the nature of governance.  Even  
though I admit that I don't find occasion to use it much, I find  
Netizen to be a useful neologism.  It reminds me that a citizen of  
cyberspace has a right to good e-governance, but also a corresponding  
responsibility to know and to say what that is.  What does make my  
hair stand on end in fear is that even Wikipedia currently  
"redirects" an e-governance query to "e-government."  These are not  
at all the same thing.  Why would we expect that the nature of  
citizenship to remain unaltered in the face of daily life online?

I have looked in several places that should reasonably supply a  
useful definition of e-governance and found that they don't.  So here  
below, for the purposes of ICT4D and people-centric distributed  
governance, is my own definition:

"E-governance is the uses of ICTs in the exercise of power by various  
levels of government so that all people, particularly the poor and  
marginalized, can influence policy, improve their livelihoods and  
gain a greater voice in the public decision making process.  E- 
governance changes behavior in relation to power in the direction of  
open and collaborative communities of interaction."

Being online allows us to see more clearly a key shift in our  
assumptions about the structure of society - that a “person” is a  
network in a society of networks.  The scale of relationship is  
fractal, not linear. The identities we assume in relationship are  
particular to the situations that occur.  They emerge from, or are  
grounded in, the choices we make.  The “individual” in these  
“situated” relationships is not classically isolated person assuming  
a contract that is imposed by the society they inhabit.  They are  
themselves an emergent composite of physical and social relationships  
that are networked.  We don't just adapt to the world as if it were a  
fixed thing.  Interdependently, we participate in the world and thus  
change its nature.  We then adapt to an altered nature in which we  
have participated.  Interaction has consequences.  Netizens accept  
responsibility for the consequences of their interactions.

What is really at issue, or central to that looming necessary public  
debate, is identity online or the autonomous expression of the self  
within a fractal structure of social organization that is truly  
different.  It's the individual who decides to connect and it's the  
Internet (TCP/IP) that merely makes the connection.  It is vital to  
hold fast to that simplicity.

GG

On 18-Feb-08, at 10:42 AM, Michael Gurstein wrote:

> Post-WSIS policy discussions were (at least informally) meant to be
> proceeded with on the governance side through the IGF and on the  
> ICT4D side
> through the Global Alliance for ICT4D (i.e. the GAID which morphed  
> from the
> UN's ICT4D Task Force when that agency sunsetted in December 2005...
>
> Since then, the IGF has captured more or less all of the attention  
> of CS,
> and seems well on the way to becoming some sort of "agency" and  
> focal point
> for all forms and measures of post-WSIS substantive policy  
> discussions cf.
> Don Maclean's recent post on Sustainable Development and the IGF,  
> and Tom
> Lowenhaupt's suggestion of a Cities TLD theme.
>
> In the meantime the GAID publicly abjured itself from a "policy  
> role" (the
> Santa Clara meeting), attempted to establish itself as a
> programmatic/implementation body (through its partnership with  
> Intel and
> through its adoption (as its own) of various already existing  
> programmatic
> initiatives (Telecentres.org, the African connectivity  
> initiative)). In
> addition, the GAID adopted for itself a completely non-transparent and
> top-down governance structure and only infrequently surfaced as the
> sponsor/co-sponsor of various events in various places with little
> coherence, virtually no frameworks for non-centralized  
> participation, and
> little visible contribution to ICT4D "policy".
>
> In the absence of any "there" being "there", the IGF has, through  
> its own
> vague adoption of a "development" mandate (and "access" as a theme)  
> begun a
> measure of mission creep into the ICT4D space.
> ...........
>
> To conclude this ramble, I do not think that the IGF is an  
> appropriate forum
> for ICT4D policy discussion (not including the very very small sub- 
> section
> where ICT4D and IG issues narrowly defined overlap...)
>
> The communities (particularly on the CS side) do not overlap in
> representation, knowledge bases, interest, or overall desired  
> outcomes (for
> the events).  ICT4D needs to have its own policy forum (I guess a  
> subsidiary
> spun off group from the IGF if properly constituted might work) and
> particularly one where the necessary voices of grassroots ICT4D  
> folks can
> make themselves heard.


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