[governance] AW: [tt-group] FW: GAID
Jeanette Hofmann
jeanette at wzb.eu
Tue Dec 29 05:21:40 EST 2009
Hi all,
I think the problem with discussing democracy versus multi-stakeholder
arrangements or multi-stakeholder arrangements as forms of democracy is
that the term democracy has become so blurred. While the majority of
countries call themselves democracy today, their democratic practices
vary widely.
The same is true for voting as a core element of democratic
organization. Each voting system represents the will of the people in a
specific way and none of them does so "objectively".
So, democracy as such doesn't provide enough substance in terms of
practices to function as a good benchmark. Also, its traditional
components don't work in international settings.
They way I see it is that we face a bit of a clean sheet situation where
experiments with new institutions are required to find out what works on
the transnational level and may be regarded as legitimate by those who
are affected.
jeanette
Parminder wrote:
> It is interesting that this has become a discussion between a democratic
> system and a new governance form which is being called as a
> multistakeholder system, in contrast to democratic system. I think we
> should do a discussion on this list and resolve this issue in some form
> if possible. I consider adherence to ideals, principles and practices of
> democracy as absolutely non-negotiable. And I have less hesitation that
> others here to say that I am very sure that I think that is what
> progressive civil society and IGC should clearly adopt and proclaim.
>
> Is multistakeholderism a form of 'deepening democracy' and thus builds
> upon and works with, even within, democratic governance systems, or is
> it a new form of governance different from democratic governance?
>
> I can explain what i mean with democratic governance, though there is
> lots of literature on it, but can someone explain to me what is this
> alternative of multistakeholder governance - what are its ideals and
> ideology, its principles, and its practices. I always suspected that
> some of this discourse and practice of multistakeholder governance
> system is going dramatically away from democratic governance system, but
> now this discussion is more into the open it would be good to follow up
> on it. Parminder
>
> Ian Peter wrote:
>>
>>
>>> From: Avri Doria <avri at psg.com>
>>> Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Avri Doria <avri at psg.com>
>>> Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:31:18 -0500
>>> To: IGC <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [governance] AW: [tt-group] FW: GAID
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I personally would not presume to say what we, as civil society, should be
>>> supporting.
>>>
>>
>> NO - and my opinions below are not what I think civil society should adopt,
>> just my perspective
>>
>>> I tend to toward multistakeholder systems where each stakeholder group figures
>>> their own ways, ie. their choice from various democratic or other forms, of
>>> picking their representatives.
>>>
>>
>> Not for me - Ive had enough of dictatorships, meritocracies, feudalism,
>> nation states, and other unrepresentative structures. Some sort of
>> representative model is a baseline for me, and unfortunately in technical
>> community and nation states in particular we don't always see these.
>>
>>> As for what the nation states have foisted on us in the name of democracy, i
>>> have grown quite disillusioned with it as I have not seen an election yet that
>>> has not been tampered with and/or distorted in multiple ways. i strongly
>>> believe that direct democracy works at the local level but that it does not
>>> scale to the global level, and i believe that bottom-up representation can
>>> grow within the stakeholder model from the most local level up in some varying
>>> but scalable way.
>>>
>>
>> Lets face it, if planet earth had a democratic structure its governance
>> would be entirely different. For a start, equal size electorates instead of
>> nation states would see global politics being conducted entirely
>> differently. For a start, the India and China votes would dominate globally
>> because of their population sizes. And although India in particular can sit
>> very comfortably with huge internal disparities between rich and poor, I
>> don't think the huge current global differences between rich and poor
>> nations would continue without some improvements. Nation states are a
>> failure on many levels, climate change talks being the latest example, and
>> one day we do have to move beyond this. How we do it is the question - and
>> perhaps multistakeholderism is part of the answer.
>>
>> Of course we would still have bureacracies, corruption, power grabs, fear,
>> greed, ad all of that. So it would not create a perfect world, just a
>> slightly better way of doing things now that we are globally connected.
>>
>> (well, these few days before the new year are the time for stepping back a
>> bit and taking new perspectives on things).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> i do not accept that any form of top down so-called democratic form can really
>>> be democratic, it can pretend and it can lull us into a sense of democratic
>>> security, but it will always let us down and will always serve the people with
>>> money and not the rest of us.
>>>
>>> so yes, I am looking for full participatory multistakeholder process.
>>>
>>> a.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 28 Dec 2009, at 14:55, Michael Gurstein wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Avri,
>>>>
>>>> I'm not really sure what you mean by "full participatory multistakeholder
>>>> systems" but I would have thought that we, as civil society should be
>>>> supporting a full participatory democratic process as the basis for both
>>>> national and global policy development.
>>>>
>>>> I have very real concerns about the corporatist outcomes and forms that
>>>> "multistakeholder systems" seem to result in--a close look for example, at
>>>> classic multistakeholder systems like the IOC/Olympics structures don't give
>>>> one a lot of confidence in the broader benefits that are achieved as a result
>>>> of these processes. (The narrower benefits realized by the various
>>>> stakeholder beneficiaries and elites are rather easier to identify.)
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>> (about to become a temporary refugee from the Vancouver Winter OlympicsŠ
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Avri Doria [mailto:avri at psg.com]
>>>> Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 9:09 AM
>>>> To: IGC
>>>> Subject: Re: [governance] AW: [tt-group] FW: GAID
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 28 Dec 2009, at 11:29, Parminder wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Do we basically lack belief in global policies (polity) of any kind or
>>>>> just in global policies made exclusively by intergovernmental forums
>>>>> without due participation by civil society in the spirit of what has
>>>>> come to be known as 'deepening democracy'?
>>>>>
>>>> I am not sure that we, in the sense of we the IGC, have a belief.
>>>>
>>>> Personally, i believe that the only valid global policies would come from
>>>> full participatory multistakeholder systems. while it may not always be the
>>>> case, the national state still fulfills a relevant function, but in my
>>>> personal opinion it is one of several equal partners in any debate.
>>>>
>>>> So as long as we, in the sense of the IGC, are supporting the creation of a
>>>> well formed multistakeholder regime, we have something I believe in. in my
>>>> life i work for (either in a volunteer sense or a professional sense) two
>>>> institutions that are working toward a multistakeholder future. neither has
>>>> achieved that fully yet - each has a dominant force, in one the nations
>>>> states and in the other the private sector, but both are, in my opinion on
>>>> the right track an represent as far as we can get at this point.
>>>>
>>>> a.
>>>>
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>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
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