[governance] multistakeholderism
JFC Morfin
jefsey at jefsey.com
Sat Aug 21 06:36:37 EDT 2010
At 17:28 19/08/2010, Michael Gurstein wrote:
>Jefsey,
>
>While your note below seems to be making some useful points it
>demonstrates to my mind precisely one of the major hesitations I
>have concerning shifting away from existing approaches to
>democracy/the governance of governance into any of the alternatives
>currently being discussed in forums such as this one, especially
>where the main argument is that somehow the technology is forcing
>these changes upon us.
>
>We are having a discussion on quite fundamental issues of very broad
>significance and relevance and in the midst of this we are bombarded
>with technical jargon, references to highly specialized and even
>arcane areas of expertise and documentation, and undefined acronyms
>and neologisms and we are expected that somehow we are to take this
>seriously as arguments of more general import. (Or what would be
>even worse, nod sagely as though we understood and passed these
>along as useful contributions.)
>
>If you can translate what you have below into any of the official
>languages of the UN it would I think be a useful place to begin.
Dear Michael,
I am sorry but this is precisely what I did. None of the words I used
it technical. They either belong to common language, to WSIS
declarations, or to the desired interfacing between users and
engineers and they are then introduced. The real issue we have, IMHO,
is that we refuse to use our own words in the meaning we defined and
try to keep using outdated perceptions we consensually declared as
obsolete years ago. re-Doing Geneva/Tunis preparations again and again.
I have the same problem with the technical community where some hate
me and others support me. I am the facilitator of the iucg at ietf.org
mailing list (Internet Users Contributing Group). A place for users
to discuss this same problem: how to make engineers understand us
(something they do want, but then we are to do our home work and use
their precise terms because they means something precise, as much as
our own precise terms). What I observe is that none of the so called
CS attends that list. Hence my question what is CS in the opinion of
the people of this list? Why is CS not supporting the WSIS
recommendations? Why is this list not refering to the IGF mission to
deal with the emergences of the Internet and Information Society? Why
is not using the words of the WSIS its people seem to ignore? Is it a
place to vote about votes, to talk, to work, to build, to protect people?
Now, your concern irt. technology is something you share in common to
the CS/Gov/mostPrivate because the WSIS failed to see and document
it. The technology IS forcing the changes upon you, period. The fault
of the WSIS was to not identify the Adminance mechanisms and explain
how Governance should participate in order to force the people's
specifications on the technology. This is what the IUCG tries to
introduced aside of the IAB (IETF Internet Architecture Board) which
up to now has assumed the plannification of the technology evolution,
without any user/society/gov control while it is sponsored by the
private sector. Here is what IAB says (RFC 3869) on the matter:
* "The principal thesis of this document is that if commercial
funding is the main source of funding for future Internet research,
the future of the Internet infrastructure could be in
trouble. In addition to issues about which projects are funded, the
funding source can also affect the content of the research, for
example, towards or against the development of open standards, or
taking varying degrees of care about the effect of the developed
protocols on the other traffic on the Internet." (NB. This is what
ISOC now SELL!!! infuence on the technology to its platinum sponsors)
* "The IAB believes that it would be helpful for governments and
other non-commercial sponsors to increase their funding of both basic
research and applied research relating to the Internet, and to
sustain these funding levels going forward."
This was six years ago. CS, Govs and Tunis failed to answer that.
They said: "Google", so many joined Google. The only existing answer
I know off is the IUCG where self-sustained non-commercials lead
users carry research and standardisation action towards a people's
internet (cf. "people centric - à caratère humain - centrada en la
personna" (WSIS)). Who knows on this list that they have blocked
cultural filtering and changed the very concept of the internet,
introducing the principle of subsidiarity in its archtitecture and
are fighting hard for the IETF to understand the implications of what
they have consensually approved and now published.
I am afraid that a few people meeting on a mailing list or in a few
fora, even once a year paid by UN, ICANN, etc, having their own
outdated view of effective forces (I am sorry to be harsh but I do
think it is true - look at the way ALAC is not considered at ICANN,
and global members despised at ISOC, not even being represented at
the BoT) can achieve much. Where are your guns? How do you want to
impose anything to people who do have guns, billions of dollars, the
technology, paying consumers and spend their time at social
engineering? There is only one source of power they do not have:
technical innovation supported by users adhesion. Since you disregard
technical issues, any form of social advancement, and
users/people/political/consumer/cultural organizations, I do not
really see what you may hope except to die for the glory as did the
GA, IDNO, icannatlarge, ALAC. Do you realise that your Travel
expenses to IGF meetings only would permit us to drastically change
the Internet technology and make it fit what you try to vote for.
Sorry to be upset, but sometimes it does some good and may help :-)
This is my freedom of technical speach !
Best
jfc
>
>Tks,
>
>Mike
>-----Original Message-----
>From: jefsey [mailto:jefsey at jefsey.com]
>Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:57 AM
>To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Jeremy Malcolm;
>governance at lists.cpsr.org; Michael Gurstein
>Subject: Re: [governance] multistakeholderism
>
>At 05:05 19/08/2010, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>>I haven't been participating in this discussion, because I don't
>>want to stick too much of an oar in while I'm co-coordinator, but
>>I've been avidly reading and there have been many pearls of wisdom
>>exchanged. I'll just pipe up briefly here to add one short +1 to
>>this, and to make a couple of related remarks.
>
>Interesting debate. However, I do not want to harp on that too
>much, but democracy seems to be an outdated concept that is related
>to a period of prevalent dialogue calling for an elected chain of
>dialogue from bottom to top. With the demographic growth, and its
>implied direct horizontal relational consequences, we entered a
>polylogue period (people talking to everyone on behalf of everyone),
>and to facilitate this polylogue we created the Internet. This is
>new, and we are learning from experience as to what polycracy may
>mean and how one "governs", together with each other, a 7++ billion
>multicolor, multicultural, multilingual, multifaith, etc. States UN,
>in turn resulting from and dependent on a developing set of new technologies.
>
>The WSIS offered a panel of different, and probably prophetic, insights:
>
>- individual people centrism
>
>- dynamic coalitions: everyone can join/quit them to promote/defend a position
>
>- enhanced cooperations (to be worked on) to carry common tasks -
>where the current IESOCANN failure is, due to the still prevailing
>ICANN "Class IN" centrism make-believe. However, the enhanced
>cooperation mechanism is something that we will probably have to
>consider soon enough due to the principle of subsidiarity becoming
>the third founding principle (through the IDNA2008 illustration) of
>the Internet architecture (after the principle of adaptability as a
>result of the principle of permanent change - RFC 1958; and the
>principle of simplicity - RFC 3439).
>
>- multistakeholderism. However, in mainly quoting the governance
>regalian space, civil society, private sector, and international
>bodies, they overlooked three key missing stakeholder classes:
>money, users, and adminance.
>
>--- Adminance is what provides its technical soil to Governance
>(standards, operations, structures, training, maintenance, etc.).
>--- Users are the people who are the center of the whole thing (far
>away from CS, which deals with principles, while Users deal with reality).
>--- Money is still currently a decimal non-digital transaction
>memory tool that is devastated by the emergence of the digital
>ecosystem and is totally out of tune with it, and with the emerging
>polycracy (hence the current financial crisis and corruption wave
>[Russia: 50% of the GNP]).
>
>- the IGF decision making tool. Certainly the least understood
>proposition to date. While the main concept is still "coordinated
>cooperation" (by US, ICANN, UN...), the IGF is NOT a place for
>coordination (with voted motions influenced by lobbies and
>sponsors), but rather a place for "concertation" (French/EU
>meaning), i.e. where everyone can come to a better, mutually
>informed, personal decision.
>
>In such a system, stability can only proceed from what Buckminster
>Fuller called "tensegrity" (integrity based on a balance between
>tension and compression components).,This is probably a notion that
>we should explore better as a multilateral continuation of the
>East/West Cold War coexistence and further US globalization attempt.
>
>jfc
>
>
>>I agree that civil society must promote the adoption of a framework
>>for further democratising global governance (for which
>>"multistakeholderism" is just a convenient and slightly inaccurate
>>shorthand), beyond the Internet governance regime, in which it is
>>really just a test-bed.
>>
>>Agreeing with Wolfgang, and disagreeing slightly with Parminder,
>>for me the inclusion of the three stakeholder groups in
>>multi-stakeholder structures has never been about increasing the
>>power of the private sector, but on the contary, balancing it. The
>>private sector already has the ear of governments, and by promoting
>>multistakeholderism we ask nothing more than for the same privilege.
>>
>>In Internet governance, we already have a good basic starting point
>>for such a framework in the WSIS process criteria and the IGF's
>>(unfulfilled) mandate to assess the performance of Internet
>>governance institutions against these criteria. Beyond that, the
>>framework is being taken forward by efforts like the UNECE/CoE/APC
>>Code of Good Practice on information, participation and
>>transparency in Internet governance (already referred to in this
>>thread, http://www.intgovcode.org/).
>>
>>Other regimes are very far behind. I have just written a paper in
>>which I argue for the development of global principles for
>>governance of the global regime on intellectual property, in view
>>of the threat of ACTA, whose negotiators not only flout basic
>>principles of democratic global governance, but also feign
>>ignorance that they are doing so. One of our workshops
>>(Parminder's) will deal with this in detail too.
>>
>>My fear, though, is that whilst Internet governance is, as I've
>>said, just a test-bed for multistakeholderism, if it doesn't soon
>>prove its value then it will not only have been born there but will
>>die there as well, and end up with no more currency in global
>>governance discourse than communism or anarchism.
>>
>>In this respect I respectfully can't agree with Ginger (another
>>reason I'm piping up now!) about the need to constrain the IGF from
>>producing "results". The fears about "the pressure of negotiations
>>or the need for an agreed-upon end 'result'", whilst not unfounded,
>>should be systematically confronted and addressed rather than
>>fatalistically accepted.
>>
>>It is more important that multi-stakeholderism works (and for us,
>>not just for the incumbent powers) rather than that it doesn't rock
>>the boat. And by "works", we mean that we need to have an
>>appreciable impact on shaping actual public policy decisions at a
>>global level. At the moment, we quite simply don't (research
>>presented at last year's workshop on "Identifying the Impact"
>>demonstrated this, and the UNSG's recent remarks also acknowledge it).
>>
>>In fact there are many ways in which the power of governments and
>>other powerful actors to screw up the process can be defused. I've
>>written about these ad nauseum and I don't intend to do so again
>>here, but read again the summary I wrote for the IGP for a
>>refresher if you are interested (
>>http://internetgovernance.org/pdf/MalcolmIGFReview.pdf).
>>
>>With that out of the way, I'll re-lurk and leave you all to
>>continue these very productive and interesting discussions.
>
>
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