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

Thu Nov 3 13:30:15 EDT 2011

Hi

this artificial disctincton between "voice" (for civil society, technical community and private sector) and "vote" (governments) in Internet Governance comes from an academic Ivory Tower. It depends very much from the circumstances and the concrete issue where the fine line between  between "voice" and "vote" can be drawn. 

The "one state one vote" system of the UN has its merits, but also it flaws. And there is a lot of space for improvement. In the UN General Assembly each member state, represented through its government, has a "vote". But I am questionning whether all those governments listen to the "voices" of their domestic civil society. I would have a lot of problems if the vote of the government of Zimbabwe becomes a decisive element in a voting about Internet Governance. I remember the days of WSIS 1 in December 2003 in Geneva when President Mugabe came with "his government" (248 members, the largest governmental delegation). The confusing fact was, that nobody was siiting behing the nameplae opf Sinmbabwe after Mugabe had finished his speech. With all resepct for the national sovereignty of a UN member state, ist this the "global democracy" Parminder proposes?

With other words, majority voting in the UNGA tells you something, but could be also very misleading. This space is full of contradictions. The Veto-System of the UN Security Council is obviously undemocratic but it is had worked in certain cases and avoided a nuclear war among superpowers (which was good for mankind but not so god for democratization of intergovernmental relations). India, obviously one of the largest democracies in the world, wants to get a veto-right in the UN Secueirty Council. Would this make the system more democratic?   

BTW, as a Nom-Com Chair under ICANN I had a "voice" but not a "vote". And this was good. So first ask what is at stake and then move to a differentiation between "voice" and "vote". 

Wolfgang

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Von: governance at lists.cpsr.org im Auftrag von parminder
Gesendet: Do 03.11.2011 13:01
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Betreff: Re: [governance] Reconciling Democracy & Multistakeholderism: Having a Voice vs. Having a Vote

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
	906-204-4026 (cell)

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