[governance] Invitation: May 13th: Public Participation Meeting

[Garth Graham]

On 8-May-09, at 2:41 AM, karen banks wrote:
> Attached is ....... a summary of David Souter's second research  
> report ........ The report reviews the governance, information and  
> participation practices of twelve "entities" which are primarily or  
> extensively concerned with internet governance; includes  
> assessments of the similarities among and differences between them  
> in five main areas and identifies significant tensions and  
> challenges to information and participation practice which are  
> posed by the changing nature of the internet. These challenges are  
> discussed in some depth, but are summarised in the form of  
> questions for discussion between the project and the internet  
> governance community.


In April, under the thread “Workshop proposal - Internationalization  
of,” I commented that the Internet's inherent capacity to support  
distributed self-organizing relationships was a symptom of an  
underlying radical shift in understanding of the nature of  
governance.  If that’s so, then David Souter's summary of the  
research report on “participation” raises an even broader question of  
context than it addresses.

Souter correctly notes a continuum of policy dialogue about, “the  
relationship between ‘narrow’ internet governance, which is concerned  
with governance of the Internet itself, and ‘broad’ internet  
governance, which is concerned with interfaces between the Internet  
and other areas of public policy.” [1]. But does that word  
“participation” intend to encompass what the vision statement in the  
IGC Charter calls “interdependence,” and what I’ve previously  
referred to as relational self-organization?   Certainly the content  
of the participation principles comes up to the edge of that  
essential but risky debate without actually summarizing its inherent  
proposition.

When do we admit what we know, that Internet Governance reveals  
something significant about an alternative understanding of the  
nature of governance?  Isn’t it time we acknowledged, not that  
systemic change is required, but that systemic change is already in  
being?

To the degree that the “ethos” of the participation principles  
governing the practices of “Internet Governance actors” includes  
behaviors such as identification, altruism, compassion, caring, co- 
operation, mutual understanding, and trust, maybe the principles do  
acknowledge that.   They certainly open the door part way for  
discussions about why the culture or belief systems that underlie  
those values are different.

I am encouraged to spot some signs that others are also risking ways  
of addressing a shift in the possible meanings of governance.   For  
example, there’s Milton Mueller’s reference to a redefinition of  
“public authority,” [2] and there’s ISOC’s statement of the  
importance of “user centricity” in design. [3].

I am aware that many of us who see that wider context also want to  
avoid the risk of waking the slumber of governments.  They believe  
pragmatic caution is the best way.  After all, are there any nation  
states prepared to accept that the very basis of governance is  
profoundly challenged by the Internet’s existence?  I don’t feel the  
need for caution myself.  This is because I see that the existence of  
a global dialogue about the means of Internet Governance signals they  
are already awake to the problem that most of the explanations of  
what’s occurring don’t add up.  And, as they seek to determine how  
different questions might produce better answers, what happens then?   
Maybe it’s time to anticipate that the presently unmentionable is  
actually going to be addressed?

Except for governance, most disciplines and sectors are now in the  
midst of an exploration of the significance of evolutionary theory  
for their practices.  In an evolutionary view, the primary rule  
governing the structure of the communities and societies we now live  
in is that things self-organize.  Under that rule, there is no place  
to put an explanation of something that comes from outside a system.  
There is no maker.  Somehow the system makes itself.  What we can  
know comes to us only through networks of relationship. And what  
makes us human in relationship is not competition for scarce  
resources.  It’s the ability to participate with others in  
collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions.

Self-organizing systems govern themselves by incorporating the rules  
about making rules within themselves.  Hierarchical systems are  
governed by imposing the rules about making rules from outside.

In an evolutionary view, both the Internet and the debate about  
Internet Governance can be understood as a mirror that reflects an  
enormous cultural shift in the autonomy of individuals and the  
significance of their local knowledge and practices.  Or, in other  
words, “the ‘broad’ internet governance arena, where the internet  
intersects with other public policy issues and organizations which  
have different governance traditions,” is, in fact, much broader than  
this expression anticipates.

Because it contradicts the powerful notion of hierarchy as the key  
principle of organization, there is strong resistance to a relational  
self-organizing view of the origins of structure.   For example, I  
have never accepted the usefulness or even pragmatic reality of  
assuming hierarchical society and then dividing it into parts of  
three – the uncivil alliance of business and governments supposedly  
arraigned against the rest of us categorized as somehow civil.  In  
fact, on this list, I’ve previously quoted Castells to the effect  
that “civil society” is a construct cooked up by the other two sides  
of the triangle to avoid responsibility for doing the stuff that  
doesn’t interest them.  But those three pillars of social structure  
remain the unquestioned assumption behind the multi-stakeholder model.

I think that the multi-stakeholder model (the Internet Model) would  
work much better if the critical particle of social structure was  
understood to be autonomous community.

In my own attempts to explore an alternative view, I work to support  
the choices made by autonomous individuals to sustain the capacity of  
autonomous communities to decide their own futures. I don’t agree  
that “levels” of hierarchy that separate - local, regional, national,  
sectoral, and global - apply to self-organizing systems.  So, when I  
chose to act in the context of community as a dynamic system that  
distributes its functions across its members, I’m not choosing to act  
“ local” in the sense that is ordinarily meant.   I do admit I’ve  
been less than successful in finding a useful way to express the  
notion that the autonomy of the individual and of the community to  
self-organize are mutually reinforcing and that Internet Protocol has  
specific utility in sustaining that reinforcement.

[1]. David Souter.  Information and participation in internet  
governance - a summary note on the second phase of work by the  
Council of Europe, UNECE and APC.
<PP_Summary_Souter.doc><PPIF_IG_code_informal_cons_13_May_2009.pdf>

[2]. Milton Mueller. On the role of governments in Internet  
governance.  Submission to the Hearing on Internet Governance  
Arrangements, HLGIG, Brussels, 6 May 2009.  “By establishing rich and  
deep interlinking among its users, the Internet creates a new public,  
one that transcends traditional territorial boundaries and political  
groupings. By redefining the relevant public, it redefines the issue  
of who or what constitutes ‘public authority’.”

[3]. Preserving the User Centric Internet. Internet Society  
Discussion Paper:
http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/usercentric_en_2008.pdf   “....  
the Internet Society believes that the guiding principles for  
decision making must be the preservation of the Internet’s user- 
centricity through its design values and its principles of openness,  
transparency, edge-based intelligence and, above all, user choice.   
Architectures, business models, and policies that fundamentally shift  
away from these design values are fundamentally shifting away from  
the Internet itself.”

GG

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