[governance] Reconciling Democracy & Multistakeholderism: Having a Voice vs. Having a Vote
Paul Lehto
lehto.paul at gmail.com
Thu Nov 3 15:13:45 EDT 2011
2011/11/3 "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" <
wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de>
> 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.
I am not, have not been, and am not seeking to be employed or even present
in any "academic Ivory Tower." Based on comments received and my own
intent, I had thought I expressed myself rather simply, especially
considering the complicated terrain of debates I was trying to distill into
more clarity.
In any event, Wolfgang, you are lucky to be as respected as you are. This
explains why you report (below) feeling little difference between a
situation where you had a voice, and one with a vote. The less one is
part of the necessarily narrow group of people who decisionmakers learn to
develop respect for based on expertise and like things, the more one is
like a child, who has a voice but not a vote.
Children have voices, but not votes. Parents have voices too, and the only
votes. This distinction is not "artificial" it is absolutely fundamental
to freedom and democracy.
> It depends very much from the circumstances and the concrete issue where
> the fine line between between "voice" and "vote" can be drawn.
>
Sure, any intelligent person can think of hard cases, or line-drawing
questions. The only words that can not be debated are the words of a
strongman dictator. (But that's not because the words and ideas aren't
depending a lot on circumstances, distinctions, and line-drawing, just like
"voice" and "vote" is if and only if we imagine harder cases at the
margins. Those always exist, in all languages. Differences are ones of
degree.
People standing in line for a one minute chance to address a city council
have a voice, sort of, but no vote. Surely it's better to sit silently on
the city council and suffer through the public comments, and be one of a
relatively small number of votes, is it not?
>
> 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.
You should be more than simply "questioning" whether all governments listen
to their people. Clearly, some do not.
The United Nations, itself as a corporate body, is not a "democracy."
Democracy can not be composed of non-human corporations, whether they be
government or municipal corporations or business corporations.
Again I find myself feeling I need to repeat what should be a fundamental
axiom: examples of corruption of an idea or system are not proof that the
idea or system is not workable on the whole. If examples of corruption do
serve this purpose, I suggest we must then give up on the project of making
anti-criminal laws, because clearly these have been violated since before
the dawn of history, and it seems the violations will never fully cease.
Does it follow that criminal law as an entire enterprise is "questionable?"
The question should be, instead: "If we add more of X, does it improve
things?" Within one small sector of criminal law, it starts to be
arguable that when we add more anti-drug or Prohibition laws, we create
more crime and organized crime, so maybe we can consider giving up on that
small part of the criminal law.
If we add more Democracy, does it improve things? The answer is clearly
yes. Anything less than democracy, such as voting multistakeholderism,
means that certain humans get multiple voices and multiple votes (as
humans, as investors in several businesses, as officers, or etc) and other
humans get nothing.
The cutting edge MS models allow for token 'voice' and "Listening" programs
where they purport to listen to the little people. It's like parents and
children, again.
Is the defense from MS supporters to be "I am a good parent" to the charge
from fellow adults that democracy is not being respected?
> 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 know what you mean, and sympathize. But the cause of world peace and
cooperation, and the need for negotiation, mean that we have to talk with
all parties and countries. Making deals with, and according a certain
respect for even enemies, is called diplomacy, and it seems that's a good
part of what the UN is about, and rightly so. Diplomacy with some
democratic principles respected in practice, some respected presently
mostly in theory, andsome democratic principles inapplicable because it's
an assocation of governments, not humans. But still, excepting the
Security council and a couple other things, the UN is remarkably
*relatively* democratic considering the sovereignty of every member state.
>
> 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?
>
Yes and no. It would bring India into the elite countries on the Security
Council, which is itself democratic. It gives India more power and a bigger
vote, but vis a vis every other country in the world it is not 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".
>
As I said above, the only reason having a voice but not a vote would be if
you were very respected, as I know you are. Perhaps there's one other
example of voice without vote that is acceptable and that is if one is
extremely knowledgeable and persuasive and the voters are eager to be
sheep. THen no vote is needed. Otherwise, children have voices, and
parents have votes (and voices).
>
>
> 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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--
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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