[governance] Reconciling Democracy & Multistakeholderism: Having a Voice vs. Having a Vote

[parminder]

Thanks Paul, for a very good and pertinent exposition.

Multistakeholderism is about voice, and its structures and outcomes are 
different than involving providing *actual participation* in political 
decision making, which can only be through votes and representative systems.

And yes, non human entities (  businesses as well as NGOs) cannot have 
votes. They should have voice though.

Positing what should be channels of voice (multi-stakeholder systems) as 
those of votes have mostly meant that those with the greatest resources 
have exclusive or additional votes, and the less resourced are sought to 
be pacified by giving nominal space and opportunity for voice (that they 
are mostly not able to exercise in competition with well resourced 
voices) *instead* of giving votes - or actual participation in decision 
making....

Which does not mean that current (or any) systems of representation are 
perfect (or even good enough). They need to be constantly improved 
through processes of deepening democracy. But it is counter productive 
to impose non democratic forms over them.

Paul's exposition is also instructive for showing the contradiction 
involved in standing for 'human' rights and also advocating 
multistakeholderism as a political decision making system. Only actual 
humans have the human right of  participation in making the political 
decisions that effect them, not businesses or NGOs. Agreed that humans 
need to effectively organise to exercise political choice. That is what 
the project of democracy is about. But a private business can hardly be 
seen as a system for organising humans for exercising choice. At 
present, only elected democratic governments are such a system, 
especially those who listen to and respect all voices.

parminder



On Monday 31 October 2011 09:30 PM, Paul Lehto wrote:
>
> It seems that in the longstanding debates about the merits and 
> demerits of multi-stakeholderism, there is a perspective that may 
> possibly help reconcile the views of some major positions on this 
> issue, or perhaps even reconcile all of them:  The question perhaps 
> ought to be framed in terms of having a voice versus having a vote.
>
> Under human rights and democracy laws, only human beings (or their 
> elected representatives) have votes.  But businesses, NGOs, and others 
> often have relevant if not important expertise, and thus have relevant 
> if not important "voices" that are either useful or even necessary to 
> intelligent process, and thus to good outcomes.
>
> Garbage in, garbage out.  For good process, we need good "voices" or 
> good information.  One big source of this good information are all the 
> folks we think of as invitees or participants in a "multi-stakeholder" 
> process.
>
> The issues arise when the voices are also the only votes or the main 
> votes.  This confuses good, democratic process of furthering the 
> important cause of an INFORMED decision-making electorate or process, 
> with the issue of WHO HAS A VOTE.   Under democracy and fundamental 
> humans rights laws, only human beings have votes, and it is one a one 
> person/one vote basis.
>
> For the moment, let's put aside the issue of building robust electoral 
> systems on a global scale allowing all the humans to vote who are 
> interested in doing so and effected by what's proposed (i.e. "the 
> governed.")   There may be challenges there to be sure, but if this is 
> considered a worthy objection ultimately, then it is a worthy 
> objection for a dictator to object to democracy because polling 
> places, precincts, ballots and other infrastructure simply does not 
> exist.  That's a bad joke, or an excuse for authoritarianism, not a 
> valid objection to working towards and implementing democracy.
>
> The call of freedom and democracy movements worldwide has nearly 
> always been essentially the same thing: let's make democracy REAL.  
> And then we will eternally have to keep it real, of course.
>
> We ought to have multi-stakeholderism in terms of Voice Process, but 
> not in terms of Vote Process.  It's very important to hear all the 
> different perspectives including business perspectives 
> (Multi-stakeholderism), but that should not translate into non-elected 
> OR non-human persons or entities voting and determining the laws and 
> policies that structure and define the freedom of the internet (or the 
> necessary protections against fraud and abuse).
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
>
>
> -- 
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI  49849
> lehto.paul at gmail.com <mailto:lehto.paul at gmail.com>
> 906-204-4026 (cell)
>
>
>
>
>
>
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