[governance] The New Class: Civil Society Professionals?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

[applause, veni deserves my thanks for pointing to a very large elephant in
a very small, crowded room]

>      [These seem to be Veni's main points:]
>      - we may be seeing the emergence of a professional class of civil
> society activists ("CS professionals").

There are two classes of these:

* Lobbyist type organizations - that have a particular (political,
ideological) agenda and spend significant time on it.  The narrow focus Veni
describes tends to view IG through the "ICANN + RIR" filter.

* IG/CS "freeloaders" - plenty of so-called "NGOs" that exist solely to
receive funding, grants and fellowships, and translate these to paid
holidays abroad and a lavish lifestyle at home.  

* At least in some cases, I've seen people try for fellowships solely
because the amount they get in Euros / Dollars amounts to several times
their monthly salary in a local currency.

>      - the CS professionals are alleged to have specific private
> interests. Their careers, income, and status depend on the Internet
> governance process.

Yes.  So they take on the status of pressure groups, or lobbying
organizations.

>      - the CS professionals are alleged to have a biased world view,
> based on easy access to the Internet, full command of the English
> language, and personal origins in USA and Western Europe.

You get biased world views of two types.  One with a distinctly leftist,
post modernist bias (with, perhaps, more than a tinge of anti-americanism),
and another which is founded on personal equations and relationships built
from agreement or conflict in over a decade of multiple conferences and
forums.

>      - representatives from less affluent, non-English-speaking
> societies may find themselves marginalized by this CS professional
> class

Oh, but you get a "CS professional" class of its own from developing
countries too. Who can be just as vocal.  What they lack is capacity
building in at least some cases (but even first world CS types aren't immune
from needing that).  This is about "genuine players" shall we say, rather
than the bogus "NGOs" that exist solely to receive fellowship largesse.
You'll have seen both types before.

I have a friend, an Indian, who was local liaison for an org that had quite
a lot of aid to distribute among Kenyan NGOs.  So, some guy from the org
came over and addressed the audience .. a few of whom were muttering stuff
like "why doesn't this mzungu / white guy just sign the damned checks and
get out of here like all the others do". Too bad my friend spoke Swahili
fluently and could understand, I guess.

> But there are IG-CSP who are as if permanently subscribed for all
> events - ICANN meetings, ISOC meetings, IGF, working groups, advisory
> groups, special groups, special interests groups, users groups, task

This logic cuts both ways. Some people participate in all these because they
are genuinely committed. And they don't care particularly about being
elected to committees, or having their viewpoint seen as the One True
Consensus (tm).  And others gradually get an overweening motive - translate
all this into funding, tenure, grants, book contracts, etc etc.  Either way,
the IG communities are rather like a moebius strip, very big on continuity.

The argument you're looking for shouldn't be to push out everybody who is a
regular. It should be to get more regulars into the process, regulars who
have a clue about what they are talking about, so that they can make a
meaningful contribution.  Stakeholderism for the sake of stakeholderism
isn't something I want to be perpetuated .. aka getting orgs to participate
in large global events "just because".

suresh

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