Extending Rights to the Internet: (Was RE: [governance] Example

[Garth Graham]

On 27-Nov-09, at 4:30 AM, Parminder wrote:
> Economically less powerful (developing) countries do not have the  
> muscle to regulate these unprecedentedly huge  global digital  
> companies, and so they have to simply submit. ........ (the  
> framework of a new wave of neo-imperialism). .......Who then  
> regulates these giant corporates, whose power now rivals that of  
> many states? ....... as the (non-level) digital playground is being  
> set out, without due regulation in global public interest. To get  
> the right global governance  institutions and outcomes to address  
> this vital issue, in my opinion, is what should centrally  
> constitute  the 'development agenda in IG'.
> (1) global  economy (and society)  have to  regulated  in global  
> public interest , and
> (2) the interest of developing countries is often different from  
> that of developed countries.
> Appropriate global regulatory and governance systems have to be  
> built which take into account these differentials, ... Exclusion  
> has to be seen and addressed in its real, felt forms and not by  
> simplistic comparisons, which smack of insensitivity.

"Who then regulates?" Indeed!

There is a way to avoid merely replacing one form of global  
authoritarianism with another. Elinor Ostrom  identifies eight  
"design principles" (perhaps a better word in the context of  
development capacity than "rights?) of stable local "common property  
resource management" (1).  Considering the Internet' social spaces as  
common property resources, a "form" of governance that effectively  
addresses exclusion would need to include:
1.     Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external  
unentitled parties);
2.     Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common  
resources are adapted to local conditions;
3.     Collective-choice arrangements allow most resource  
appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
4.     Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or  
accountable to the appropriators;
5.     There is a scale of graduated sanctions for resource  
appropriators who violate community rules;
6.     Mechanisms of conflict resolution are cheap and of easy access;
7.     The self-determination of the community is recognized by  
higher-level authorities;
8.     In the case of larger common-pool resources: organization in  
the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local  
CPRs at the base level.

Reflecting on the application of these principles, it would seem that  
the Internet's capacity to sustain the autonomy of self-organizing  
communities of common interest is anything but chaos.  I am  
comfortable that ISOC's "Internet Ecology" model of Internet  
Governance is beginning to take these principles into account.

[1] Ostrom, Elinor: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of  
Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press. 1990.  
p.90. and Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, Princeton  
University Press. 2005. p.259



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