[governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom

[Parminder]

Milton L Mueller wrote:
> Agreed, Parminder. And this system of supervision is an affront to all liberal and democratic norms of governance, not just to the South. It is, however, de-nationalization we need, not "inter"nationalization
>   
Milton

You know I do agree that Internet, and the consequent information 
society paradigm, creates the condition of a new global public, which is 
not simply a sum of national ones. This both requires and creates the 
conditions/ possibilities for a new global polity. And Internet 
Governance needs to be located in this new public. This far we agree.

But since real world requires real world solutions, we need to 
understand and perhaps agree to the kind of path we should and will take 
to this new 'global public' based 'global polity' ...

One path, which is increasingly dominant and with which I have violent 
disagreement, is based on basically giving in to the leadership of 
global corporates, which is what is happening with most of the private 
governance systems, including ICANN. We all know they are subtle about 
it and careful in the steps taken, but basically thats the direction on 
how our global common decisions will be taken if we keep going with the 
present dominant trend. I will not argue any further the theoretical 
basis of such a fear, but i can if needed. For us, this very 
well-founded fear underlies one of the principal global struggles at 
present.

The other possibility is to move towards this new 'global polity' taking 
on from existing relatively democratic institutions - however faulty in 
practice, but much more sound in theory and principles than private 
regimes. One can improve bad practice when the theory is good, but with 
bad theory and principles you are headed only one way.

It is not an easy challenge, but it is relatively easier to agree to the 
basic principles that should guide us. And perhaps the most basic 
principles is to understand and accept the difference between private 
and public interests - very clearly, and assert it repeatedly. Such a 
distinction is basic to the democratic fibre of a society. The amount of 
confusion on this issue in most emergent governance systems is so huge 
that one cannot even start speaking about them.

A second principle of a viable global polity, and here our differences 
come to the fore, is that you cannot try to build it on free-market 
economic logic alone. Dimensions of social justice and equity, and the 
corresponding redistributional efforts, have to go hand-in-hand with 
economic globalisation. Some such basic principles of social equity 
along with institutions of property and free market are basic to any 
polity (do you know of an exception?) and it will need also to be of a 
'global polity'. it is in this landscape or background that a just and 
fair IG system will be built. We are far from there, no doubt, but it is 
easier to see if we are headed to the right direction, or the opposite 
one. Such an assessment can guide our immediate steps.

Having said all this, I happy with the term de-nationalisation to the 
extent it truely connotes a new global public and global polity, and is 
not a means for corporates to highjack control of our global society, or 
for already dominant countries to rule with a new and enhanced legitimacy.

Parminder
> ________________________________________
>
> Maybe. But on another important count, we, as the South based civil
> society groups, loathe to work through a system where the interests and
> rights of one country are highly privileged over others (the
> sub-committee keeps speaking of US citizens, and expectedly so). We are
> not willing to be the 'rest of them' as we figure in this system... It
> is therefore of great and urgent importance that internationalization of
> supervision of ICANN is seen as *the* non-negotiable and urgent step in
> the IG arena. The reluctance and double-speak of many in what is seen as
> the global civil society in this arena is most disturbing to me, and as
> I am prone to say, completely unacceptable.
>
> parminder
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