[governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)

[John Curran]

On May 22, 2012, at 8:01 AM, Avri Doria wrote:
> I also do not have an analysis, but from 20+ years participation would say the primary reason that capture does not happen is because people would not stand for it.  Over time there have been a few occasions when one large company or other tried to ram its favorite solutions through the process.  But by the time the various WG and review process had been gone through it it was no longer the solution that the large company tried to ram through.   And that is because people review seriously, do a bit of implementation testing, and argue their issues freely.

This concurs with my observations of the IETF.  Some of the outputs may 
be less than ideal, but it is generally the result of differing views on
a particularly property of a proposed solution (e.g. scaling, or security) 
as opposed to pedantic defense of a broken proposal.

> Another possible reason it works is genuineness in regards to ones opinion.  I have often seen the people from the same company arguing with each other in the midst of a public WG meeting over the better path.  Just try to imagine two people from a single country or a single organization getting up in a meeting and disagreeing with each other? And yet, that would be a healthy sign in my view of having achieved a bit of maturity in the multistakeholder model

The IETF process is about determining the actual merits of a proposed
solution, and therefore any input is welcome into the discussion from 
any source regardless of affiliation.  This is reflected in the "you 
participate as individuals" mantra which is often heard, and noted in 
the "Internet Standards Process" (RFC 2026/BCP 9) 
<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt> - 

"They provide ample opportunity for participation and comment by all 
 interested parties.  At each stage of the standardization process, a 
 specification is repeatedly discussed and its merits debated in open 
 meetings and/or public electronic mailing lists, and it is made 
 available for review via world-wide on-line directories."

To Parminder's point ("any governance system excludes any party with 
conflict of interest, which important norm of democracy and public 
life gets over-ridden by your 'on equal footing' proposition."), it 
is indeed true the IETF allows input from all parties, and in fact,
it is expected that knowledgable people, even if working for companies
which could be considered interested parties, are going to be heavily 
involved in the discussion of the merits of a given proposal.  This is 
considered acceptable because the particular viewpoint of a participant 
isn't actually taken as input, it is instead their reasoning behind the 
viewpoint that is being sought so that those who disagree can readily 
discern why they agree or disagree on the merits of the proposal...
as long as the participants are intellectually forthright in their 
participation, and take the time to explain their reasoning, it is 
considered helpful to the process.

> Often people say that the IETF formula only works because it is dealing with technical subjects but that it would not work in the policy area.  I think this argument is unproven and I don't beleive it.  I think people assume there is just one correct technological solution, but this is never the case.  There are many tradeoffs that must be made a long the way to a possible technical solution and the outcome is by no means fated to a single possible solution.  I think the technical solution space and the policy solution space are not inherently dissimilar in character and thus do not accept that it is subject matter that make the IETF formula not work for policy issues.

Note that the output of the IETF are voluntary standards, i.e. organizations
are free to use or not use these standards or not as they see fit.  While it's 
true that there are sometimes aspects of technical standards that impact the 
Internet at large, those are quite infrequent and often the participants in the 
standards process (whether directly in the technical community or other from 
civil society and government) are present to highlight these public policy 
issues when they arise.  This suffices for technical standards, but might be 
considered rather weak compared to some other mechanisms if it were extended
to public policy development.

> The main difference I find between the policy arena and the technical area is the consistency of people's opinions.  In technology, for the most part, people beleive in the same technical solutions even after they change jobs.  In the policy area, people's views often change when they change jobs.  In tech people argue what they personally beleive while in policy people seem to often argue what they are paid to beleive in.  In the tech area, one rarely gets a job because they picked one technical solution over another, while in policy who you agree with determines who you work for and for many people this means conforming their views to their potential employers.

I believe that the open, multistakeholder participation model of the IETF works 
quite well, and it may be possible to extend with success into pubic policy 
development.   However, such extension has some strong prerequisites, and 
I am uncertain if they can be really be achieved in the public policy area:

  - Parties willingness to explain the actual basis behind their position,
    including their assumptions, reasoning, and expected outcome.

  - Actively following the discussion, realizing that the discussion
    itself is the most valuable part of the process in bringing people
    to common outcome.

  - Parties willingness to truly consider and change positions based the 
    reasoning heard from others

All of the above also requires direct participation (as opposed to some form
of representative participation) and that alone may be a major hinderance to 
effective use of the IETF-like model for public policy development.

As industry trade associations, these structures serve very well, but if the
outputs are to become mandatory on other parties, then we really speaking of
"governance" and that usually has more formal and structured opportunities 
for those affected (even indirectly) to be heard.

FYI,
/John






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