[governance] multistakeholderism Re: [] Net neutrality on

Sun Aug 15 17:04:00 EDT 2010

Dear Avri

Perhaps I gave the wrong impression. When I said I don't like the term
'multi-stakeholderism' I simply meant that the 'ism' at the end of
multi-stakeholder makes me feel that we have become more pre-occupied
with the form of the participation than its content.

I am completely in favour of multi-stakeholder participation in all
policy processes and I don't feel that the multi-stakeholder model
contravenes democracy. 

My concerns are that:

- the notion of multi-stakeholderism is often associated with a crude
'tri-partite' approach that boxes stakeholders into three groups: civil
society, government and business. 
- this obscures diversity within each of those groups
- and, inclusion of representatives of these groups can become and easy
way to brand processes as being democratic

I agree with you that it is way of achieving greater democracy. But I
don't think we should be uncritical. There is still room for
improvement. Mainstreaming or integration of gender into every programme
and policy resulted in a lot of token references to gender equality and
in many cases in less attention being given to equal rights or women's
empowerment.

We want to avoid a similar trend... a process is not necessarily going
to be democratic simply because it is multi-stakeholder. 

I wrote this about 5 years ago. We were having similar debates then :)

http://www.apc.org/en/news/access/world/multi-stakeholder-participation-and-ict-policy-pro

Anriette

On Sun, 2010-08-15 at 16:19 -0400, Avri Doria wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I begin to despair (at least a little) as I see more and more leaders
> in Civil society join some of the governments in the condemnation of
> the multistakeholder model.    To see and hear people undercutting the
> very modality that gives them a seat at the international, regional
> and nation tables where policy is discuss and made is unfathomable to
> me.
> 
> Some people argue that the multistakeholder model is in contravention
> to democracy.  i see it as one way of democracy.
> 
> Democracy in the simplest form that so many argue for, only works when
> it is done within a constitution framework of some sort (does not need
> to be a Constitution, could be a set of Basic Laws or some other
> instrument) that defines the constraints on absolute democracy and
> that guarantees the fundamental rights of people.   
> 
> Democracy in its simplest form means 1 person 1 vote and majority
> wins.  But we have seen time and time again the basic majorities are
> hungry to remove the rights, and more, of minorities - they do it all
> the time.  We have also seen time and time again that a democracy
> without an informed polity does not remain a democracy for long but
> devolves in a dictatorship of personality.
> 
> Multistakeholderism is a fundamentally democratic form that functions
> in environments where there is no overarching constitutional
> instrument.   It is something that allows any person in the world, or
> group of people, to have a say and a seat at the table.  Sometimes it
> sounds like people confuse multistakeholder with multishareholder.
> The multistakeholder model allow everyone to get involved in
> discussing and creating policy whether they have a financial stake or
> not, and whether they are part of some organized group or not.  Yes,
> outreach  and capacity must be done to reach the number of people who
> can participate, but that does not dismiss the participation of those
> who have made it to the table and continue to do outreach and capacity
> building to bring in others.
> 
> Brand me a techno-utopian but I proudly believe the Internet is
> fundamentally different from any other social structure the world as
> ever seen in many respects, a fundamental one being its capacity to be
> global and borderless - though governments are working very hard to
> force it into borders and way too many people are helping them.  To
> give up that uniqueness and cast it in the restrictive forms of
> telecommunications is frightening to me.  The Internet is also the
> first time creating a global multistakeholder modality has even been
> possible.  The utopian, and philosophical technologist, in me still
> hopes that the world can learn something new about governance from the
> Internet as opposed to allowing the wretched history of current
> governance models to overtake it and destroy it.
> 
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anriette esterhuysen - executive director
association for progressive communications
p o box 29755 melville - south africa 2109
anriette at apc.org - tel/fax + 27 11 726 1692
http://www.apc.org

APC 1990-2010 www.apc.org
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