[governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom
Parminder
parminder at itforchange.net
Fri Sep 18 05:00:02 EDT 2009
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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