[governance] Ism or not Ism ?

[Mawaki Chango]

Paul, Parminder et al.

It's true that governments increasingly indulge in a "two-level game"
between the democratic institutions (where applicable) and
expectations of their domestic politics and global policymaking,
possibly through MS processes. Agree, this is a threat to democracy.
I'd hope that the involvement of CS in global MS processes is a first
step for containing that threat, and CS may lead further mobilization
at national level if need be. While the list of issues eligible for a
global policy agenda will keep growing longer, we certainly must not
associate ourselves with discounting the exercise of national
democracy on those issues -- short of a global one (see below).

You Parminder are certainly making broader points than I. But while
reading I couldn't help but feel that some further clarity may be
needed on both mines and yours. I was not trying to build a model or
justify one (not even suggesting that the one being experimented with
global IG issues is fully satisfying). I'm certainly not justifying a
model of governance where "big business has a veto."

By direct participation (by the business sector), I did not not mean
necessarily through vote or veto. The fact that they can provide their
views and inputs which are taken into account by policymakers is
enough participation in my opinion.

I'd maintain the main point I was making without any distinction
between capitalist, industrialized, developed nations on the one hand
and the rest on the other. In any polity where who gets to rule is a
decision collectively made by individual citizens, the rulers will pay
a great deal of attention to the conditions that will give more
opportunities to the citizenry, or make them perceive they are or will
be better off. If you are in a capitalistic regime, you'll probably be
looking at the indicators of GDP, employment, variations in individual
income, etc. But whatever the economic regime you choose, what the
people considers instrumental to its well-being will have that much of
weight in the rulers' decision-making, at least mostly in the
democratic model you're advocating for (and please in this last
sentence, think of economy not in terms of the current global
financial corporations, but in terms of the law of the household, as
Aristotle would have it).

So I was merely describing a dynamic, giving my take on its possible
rationale, and maybe hinting to some possible tactics for CS to weigh
in more effectively. Business have obviously had their imprint on
public policy before the MS processes of the day. ITU (which
ironically is now seen in some quarters as the intergovernmental evil)
has had the business sector strongly represented in some of their
forums, and presidents making decisions of global import have had them
on their advisory teams, etc. long before the terms & practice of
global governance and MS surface in politics. If anything, it might
well be for MS-ism that your and my voices have some chance to be
heard today in these policymaking processes (again, I'm not quite yet
congratulating myself over its achievements).

I understand your contending that the onus should be on those who want
to move towards a "post-democratic" model to justify why we should
move away from the democratic model. Now, I'm not sure whether you're
not assuming too quickly that we all know what a "global democratic
polity" looks like and accept the existence, or even possible
emergence in any foreseeable future, of such thing. It's not because
the democratic model is sound and legitimate at national level that
that is automatically the case at global level. For as you know
legitimacy may largely depend on operational/ implementation
modalities. What would the global democracy function - on an issue by
issue basis with a call to only natural individuals across the globe
to take a vote? Or will it be limited to natural individuals'
attendance or membership in structures such as IGC, IGF, etc.?
Transnational NGOs may use the democratic model to make decisions and
elect their bodies, but that does not make a global polity. So I'm not
sure it's all that clear to everyone as you might think (and my
apologies to the group if those questions have already been resolved
in one of those past rounds of discussions I might have missed).

Again, I agree with you that a lot remains to be improved with MS and
the IGF and even with the IGC. But I don't see anywhere the
possibility of a global constitution defining the global citizen and
her civil rights, on the basis of which one can prescribe who's
allowed to participate and who's not. So in the mean time, domestic
democracy must also be strengthened while we're pursuing these global
MS experiments; this should not be a zero-sum game. We may grow more
activists in pushing back or countering the weight of a stakeholder we
think is unduly excessive (and maybe that's what you're trying to do
here), but we really have no basis to decide de jure that they should
NOT participate.

Our main problem may be trivial after all: This takes a heck of time!

Mawaki

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 6:00 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> Mawaki, and all
>
> I pick two important issues from Mawaki's email, but the ideas being
> responded to are from the broader discussion here.
>
> First is about expertise versus participation. These two ideas and concepts
> should be kept clearly seperate. Even a despotic king requires expertise to
> rule, but participation is about democratisation. Using the logic of need
> for expertise to push for a new post-democratic 'participation model' should
> be avoided, and in fact is quite dangerous. Such meritocratic / technocratic
> claims to 'higher level of participation' are one of the main reasons/
> logics behind the current challenges to democratic forms in IG (because of
> its technical roots), including as expressed often in the present thread of
> discussion.
>
> Second, the issue of the need for thriving economy. US became a thriving
> economy, and more recently China has, without giving a 'formal' role to big
> business, or non-human legal entities, in policy making. Why would such
> roles suddenly now be needed to maintain or achieve a thriving economy? This
> fear of losing out economically is one of the main ones that is put in the
> minds of developing countries to force them to yield policy spaces to global
> digital mega-corps. But that is simply extortion-ism by the more powerful,
> and we need to confront it rather that use it our analyses to justify new
> governance models.
>
> So, the simple question is what is so new now that we need to move away from
> democratic models to post-democratic ones, especially at the global level?
> The burden is on those who advocate these new models to show why they are
> needed, how they will work, and whose interests they will serve. And I have
> heard rather limited stuff, if any, on these key points.
>
> Meanwhile, I have a theory why these post-democratic models have  suddenly
> become so 'popular' at the global levels, which I open up to being
> contested.
>
> One. As the world becomes one economically, and also increasingly drawn
> closer at social and cultural levels, there is of course the concomitant
> need for some kind of an effective global polity. The dominant powers,
> chiefly the developed countries, are however mortally afraid what a global
> polity with a democratic basis will mean. A democratic form of polity will
> always tend towards certain degree of greater eqaulisation, egalitarianism;
> that is the nature of democracy. It is obvious that this simply does not
> suit their interests. Proposing post democratic model, in the name of
> greater opening up, where big business has a veto is clearly very convenient
> (these businesses are largely developed country based, but even developing
> country big business has a strong confluence of interest with them,
> explanation of which is given in the next point) . That is what global
> multistakeholder model of governance is really about.
>
> Second reason. There is a rising middle class in what have been called
> 'emerging economies', but also in not so emerging ones. whose social and
> cultural, and increasingly economic, and thus political, aspirations are in
> tune with the dominant classes in the west/ north. This convergence of
> political interests of rather vast groups across the global is one of the
> most important transglobal phenomenon today, which I think has not been
> given the attention it deserves. These transglobal links follow the pathways
> and networks of economic globalisation  but as a phenomenon are different
> and perhaps larger than economic globalisation. (Wolfgang, yes, the network
> phenomenon is quite strong today, but it is much more complex and non-linear
> that as you described it, especially in its strong exclusionary tendencies.)
>
> This new transglobal dominant class has a strong commonality of interests,
> and is in the same way very wary of a global democratic polity as the
> developed countires (These rising middle classes are indeed finding it a
> happy situation that the national polities no longer can afford much social
> welfare expenditure and much redistribution because of the fear of global
> capital fleeing; they certainly do not want a global polity to reinstate
> such democratic/ welfarist norms globally, and therefrom nationally.)
>
> In such a situation, I understand that the role of a progressive global
> civil society is to counter these anti-democratic developments, rather then
> flow in their chimeric allurements and deviously built false promises, much
> less actually contribute to building, the discourse and justifications for
> these post-democratic models.
>
> Unfortunately, excuse me to say so, much of civil society, especially in the
> IG arena has not stood up to the challenge of resisting the dominant forces
> and their plans, and building alternatives that bespeak the interests of
> those who are systematically being left out. It often more closely
> represents the viewpoints and the interests this emergent trans-global
> middle class. One can give many instances of it but this is already a long
> email and so i'll stop here :).
>
> Parminder
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> On Wednesday 18 August 2010 08:47 PM, Mawaki Chango wrote:
>>
>> In the same time, it is precisely because MS processes have (so far)
>> applied for "gathering perspectives around specialized issues" that I
>> think inevitably you'll have to accept the direct participation of
>> 'non-natural' or legal entities as opposed to natural individuals and
>> citizens. For the point then is precisely to get the most informed
>> advice possible, irrespective of the source.
>>
>> So (returning to the broader question) the problem is less one of
>> 'who's who' and 'who is or is not a legitimate participant' and more
>> one of process.
>>
>> As a reminder, multistakeholder (sure, not the best word one can dream
>> of) says *multi*-stakeholder, not *tri*-stakeholder. At this time,
>> many participants - probably most - seem to go along with the idea
>> that there are three main stakeholder groups but obviously we know
>> that doesn't necessarily have to be, and will probably not always be,
>> that way. I believe things are and should be more fluid than when we
>> try to categorize them with fuzzy labels.
>>
>> First, ultimate authority to make public policy lies with the
>> government, still at this point. And government will always have a
>> competitive advantage on that front as long as only it has the
>> authority to enforce the law. So how do we get from here to full, or
>> nearly full, multistakeholder policymaking? As things stand, it will
>> obviously depend on how able the other groups are to weigh on
>> governments.
>>
>> Second, private business and corporations are crucial for a nation's
>> economical health by creating wealth and employment. Whether we like
>> it or not, any democratic government would rather preside over a
>> thriving and innovative economy (and for their nation first, before
>> they worry about the global, unless the national largely depends on
>> the global). So governments have obvious good reasons to listen and
>> support private business interests while making policy.
>>
>> Third: What is civil society's value proposition? It is up to CS --
>> and all remaining part of the *multi-* -- to make its case and choose
>> its strategies.
>>
>> I'm not sure what people mean when they talk about full
>> multistakeholder (not just process or participation but actual)
>> policymaking, or CS being on "equal footing" with the government. I
>> don't know whether that implies that we're fighting or should be
>> fighting for up to a seat around the signing table with the signature
>> of CS delegates alongside those of government on the decision
>> documents.
>>
>> Also, it seems vain to me that anyone spend energy arguing that CS is
>> or should be the one most legitimate party whose views governments
>> should take into account over others' while making decisions.
>>
>> But I suspect possible paths to ensure decision outcomes are as
>> multistakeholder as possible would require CS talking to/ petitioning/
>> lobbying/ pressuring/ etc. not only governments, but also private
>> business and any other possible parties. To the extent that those
>> other parties are not by themselves ready to fully embrace CS views,
>> the onus will be on CS to show governments how doing away with CS
>> views might be damaging to the polity and to them, and business how
>> supporting CS inputs (at least some of them) might be good for their
>> long term interests (if only because CS might expose their
>> anti-citizen behaviors otherwise), etc.
>>
>> To start -- not sure if this has already been done, as I've had my
>> hiatus with these discussion, but...-- this WSIS-generated CS
>> coalition would already make history if it only manages to come up
>> with clearly defined formative principles with regard to what 'public
>> interest' might be when it comes to policymaking towards information
>> society, and further principles or rules that should be observed to
>> ensure that public interest and CS basic values be included in any
>> policymaking process and decision. Just something parsimonious,
>> fundamental, without verbiage, as one would do for a constitutional
>> preamble or bill of... norms, so to speak.
>>
>> Mawaki
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 9:10 AM, parminder<parminder at itforchange.net>
>>  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> My main problem with the ism is as follows. 'Multistakeholder
>>> participation'
>>> has for long been a valid concept in democratic practice, especially in
>>> terms of gathering perspectives around specialized issues ( and
>>>  generally
>>> not so much in deciding larger/ broader/ overall public interest issues
>>> where 'public interest' actors are mostly engaged)), and works clearly
>>> within, and in subordination to, traditional (representative) democratic
>>> institution and political processes.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ...........
>>
>>  What is clearly
>>
>>>
>>> different in any such democratic global process/ institution vis a vis
>>> multistakeholderism is that in the former only natural human beings and
>>> their natural collectives are recognized entities with rights and
>>> equality,
>>> and legal entities like corporates are not accepted to be at the same
>>> level.
>>> MSism however tends to do that.
>>>
>>
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