[governance] Proposed text for a sign-on or IGC statement re:

[Jeanette Hofmann]

McTim wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:45 PM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
>>
>> Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>> As a quick response (on the road, must run out the door soon), I think we
>>> are using the term “private sector” in very different ways. To me it just
>>> means “civil society” in the more general sense that the term has been used
>>> in political theory, which includes the voluntary, agreement-based
>>> non-governmental parts of society. This includes both business and what we
>>> on this list consider to be noncommercial civil society.
>>>
>> There are different traditions in defining civil society. In the US, it is
>> quite common to include the business sector in this definition. All out
>> attempts to delineate civil society, for example against hybrids such as
>> ISOC or people with several hats, have amounted to nothing. Yet, for out own
>> discussion it would be useful if we could at least agree whether or not the
>> private sector is part of our understanding of civil society.
>>> As for the term “Internet community,” yes, I understand the ways that term
>>> has been misused, having critcizied it extensively myself. But I hate to
>>> concede the term, because it expresses the way Internet (and many other
>>> forms of ICT governance) blurs the line between producer and consumer of
>>> information and communication products and services. As a network technology
>>> the Internet creates its own public, its own community, its own polity. That
>>> is what I mean.
>> I agree with Milton in that it is worth to reclaim this term. If we agree
>> that world citizens cannot be experts in every policy field and that the
>> democracy beyond the nation state is likely to be organized  by  sectors or
>> areas of interest, then it makes sense to speak of communities who engage in
>> certain areas such as the Internet community which cares about the general
>> mode of using, providing and changing the net's infrastructure.
> 
> Can I just point out that there is nothing new in the term "Internet
> Community". 

You are right, there is nothing new about the term. However, we are 
debating whether it makes sense for civil society to use this term. 
Parminder expressed doubts, Milton and I responded.

jeanette


It's been use use for a very long time (2 decades
> perhaps), and as such it has a well established pedigree.  There is no
> attempt to create a new global reality here, the reality has long been
> in existence.
> 
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