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

[Sonigitu Ekpe]

Hi Paul!

Quite a beautiful peace of well articulated inputs.

The choice lies in the truth.

Sea

On 31 Oct 2011 17:02, "Paul Lehto" <lehto.paul at gmail.com> 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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