[governance] CSTD: Adopted Resolution on WSIS and access to statements and recordings

[michael gurstein]

Avri,

I have nothing against being utopian -- I've been accused of that virtue
myself from time to time, the problem is that utopianism can sometimes
divert energy and attention away from more practical approaches to the same
issues and that I think has been happening in spades around the Internet
where a lot of (dare I say naïve) utopiansim has diverted a lot of energy
away from the practical work of figuring out how to use the Internet to
enhance and deepen democracy including through increased participation,
through strengthening bottom up processes as I've spent the last 15 years or
so trying to do through community informatics, through providing
opportunities for contributions from multiple stakeholders as and where
appropriate and so on.

But unfortunately as you well know a lot of the efforts driven by utopian
dreams around using the Internet for democratic purposes have foundered
precisely on the shoals of "scaling up"... Using the Internet for enhancing
participation (a la "likes" on Facebook, or "signing on" to Avaaz petitions
is one thing, actually making workable decisions democratically even in a
group as small as we are is something else again.

My feeling now is that democracy can be enhanced by working both bottom up
and top down... Bottom up -- by using ICTs to strengthen community
capabilities particularly in enhancing participation in decision making of
more immediate relevance to them, but also top down by opening up existing
channels to broader participation, including multi-stakeholder contributions
as input into broadbased democratic decision making; by enhancing the
transparency and accountability of bureaucratic and political decision
making through implementing the optimal opportunities for bottom up
participation in those processes that ICTs present; and by overall beginning
a process of adapting existing decision making and administrative structures
and processes to the enhanced capability for information flow, transparency,
accountability/participation and so on which ICTs provide.

It's going to be a long hard slog but a necessary one I think and better to
start off both with the head in the clouds and the feet in the muck.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2012 9:30 AM
To: IGC
Subject: Re: [governance] CSTD: Adopted Resolution on WSIS and access to
statements and recordings


Hi,

On 27 May 2012, at 12:08, michael gurstein wrote:

> But maybe it means something more than that to you and I would be very 
> interested in having you describe (another homework assignment :) what 
> it might look like--without, dare I say, invoking as an example the 
> IETF or any grouping that isn't larger than one than can comfortably 
> meet in a room let's say the size of the UN GA (or a New England Town 
> Hall..


You are asking me to be utopian again. And maybe I should try to write a
novel or a play that shows how a bottom-up participatory democracy could
work.  But I expect some aspect of my personality or day to day life will
keep me from ever completing such a project.  

I think the solution is an emergent one, and it is by doing the work (theory
and design) and the experimentation (empiricism)  that we find the solution.
It is not about 1 advocates utopian visions.

The issue between the things you tell me not to use as examples and the
global is a scaling factor.  I beleive that subsidiarity and aggregation
moving, from the bottom, up to areas of greater scope that can't be handled
at the local would be a key to any solution.  

And I beleive that finding the ways to use e-governance to reach people
directly whereever possible (including making it possible to use everywhere)
are a critical part of any solution. I.e governance by and of the Internet.

avri





-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t