[governance] Re: Principles

Tue Oct 2 08:18:25 EDT 2012

Dear Wolfgang,

Thanks for taking up this discussion on democracy vrs MSism . It is most 
needed.

Like many others here I react with horror about any assertion of MSism 
being the pinnacle of participatory democracy, or as Matthias K puts it, 
approvingly, MSism being post democratic (something I have been saying 
as an aspersion on MSism).

Let me use the schema I employed to describe to an government official 
recently what my vision of an appropriate IGF is. This was with regard 
to developing an India IGF model...

  This is how I described to him. I can see the (continued) progression 
of democracy in three versions. Version 1.0 was when elected officials 
assumed full authority to legislate and execute, once they were elected, 
without any reliance on any axillary democratic processes of public 
consultations. Ministries were steeped in deep secrecy and considerable 
aloofness from the public.

Ver 2.0 begun when elected officials started to employ some processes of 
democracy beyond elections, like undertaking public consultation on 
various legislative proposals, stakeholder consultations with those 
directly affected by any governmental measure, forming ad hoc or 
standing committees with civil society and outside expert 
participations, instituting right to information legislations  etc..... 
However, at this stage, public participation was still largely ad hoc, 
mostly on the terms of the government, and largely not institutionalised.

Ver 3.0 of democracy (and ver 2.0 of participatory democracy) is about 
strong institutionalisation of means and processes of participation 
(outside of elections) in an ongoing manner, whereby the agenda of such 
participation can be set with a greatly curtailed influence of the 
government, if any, the processes are largely out of control of 
governments and so on. It is independently institutionalised, funded, 
legitimised, etc. However, there is never a doubt that actual policy 
making authority remains with representative democratic bodies (how much 
improvement they my need which is to be pursued at another level). There 
has always to be sufficiently clear difference between institutions of 
participation, while they have to made as strong and inclusive as 
possible,  and those of legislation and execution. I support Norbert's 
recent assertions in this regard.

Well, this is how I said I see UN IGF normatively as. A path breaking 
innovation in global democracy denoting Ver 3.0 of democracy, which 
should also be replicated at national levels.

Now, this Democracy 3.0 model is not necessarily an invention of the the 
IG space. A lot of theoretical and practical work in the area of 
institutionalising participatory democracy has been done, especially 
over the last decade or two.  John Gaventa's work, especially on invited 
versus invented spaces of participation, comes to mind in this regard. 
There is also the famous Porto Alegre initiative of institutionalising 
public participation, through participatory budget exercises.  Lately 
ICTs have been used in Porto Alegre and other places to improve the 
ambit and effectiveness of participation. So, yes, ICTs do provide what 
is perhaps a transformational new context to possibilities of 
institutionalising participation.

As said, I see/ saw UN IGF as a Democracy 3.0 experiment, which however 
has now increasingly being high-jacked by special interests, largely in 
aid of global digital corporates. Unfortunately, MS-ism instead of being 
another name for Democracy 3.0 as some people here are trying to argue, 
has, in practice, mostly represented everything which seems going wrong 
with the IGF, and other new age information society policy mechanisms.

It is bit surprising that in this very interesting discussion on 
relationship or difference between democracy and MSism, no one has 
pointed to the elephant in the room. It is of course the growing 
economic, social and political power of mega corporates, and how a good 
amount of MSism in practice is a front for political legitimisation of 
corporatist power in ordering our societies. The article at 
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/how-google-lobbies-german-government-over-internet-regulation-a-857654-druck.html 
on how Google has infiltrated most 'participatory processes' in and 
around Germany's IG space makes the case rather eloquently. Then one 
reads how 84 out of 108 Google lobbyists in the US are ex gov employees 
and what influence it exercises on the behaviour of expectant government 
officials still in service (http://keionline.org/node/1555 ). And now, 
in Brazil, we find that Google thinks that it has some kind of 
independent jurisdictional status whereby it can decide what to do or 
not do with national laws, using its Internet based powers, including by 
making backhanded appeals to users 
(http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/thompson/2012/09/27/on-the-arrest-of-googles-head-in-brazil/ 
).

The institutionalisation of participatory spaces and processes of 
Democracy 3.0 needs to be done with no less care then was done in the 
case of basic representative democracy. It needs similar building of 
values, norms and highest principles, and also, most importantly, 
safeguards against capture. Unfortunately most adherents of MSism are 
averse to any deep discussions on these issues. And to me that is the 
principal undoing of MSism.

Matthias, if you can critique current relevance of democracy citing the 
difference between formal and material forms of democracy, maybe it is 
also worthwhile to pay attention to difference between formal and 
material aspects of MSism. Almost all the stuff I read about MSism in 
such discussions as this one is about formal MSism, which is made to 
look so good and inclusive. On the other hand, almost all of the 
material reality that I see around me of MSism (in IG) is about a very 
thinly veiled apology (and legitimisation) for growing political power 
of mega global digital corporates. Also worth a PhD for someone I 
suppose :) .

Parminder

On Monday 01 October 2012 01:22 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
> Parminder:
> multistakeholderism (whats wrong with participatory democracy?)
>   
> Wolfgang:
> Multistakeholderism *IS* the highest form of participatory democracy
>   
> Parminder:
> improvements to internationalism & national laws
>   
> Wolfgang:
> To errect (national) legal barriers for the free flow of information among people is a bad idea and contrary to individual human right to freedom of expression. Governments have an obligation under international law to guarantee access to and the distribution of information "regardless of frontiers". To undermine the borderless nature of the Internet and to introduce a system for Internet communication similar to global travel arrangements, (where you need a permission (visa) to leave or enter a country) brings us back into the cold war of the 20th century and would have bad and sad economic and social consequences in particular for individuals in developing countries.
>   
> In this context I repeat my proposal to start in Baku with the work on a global "Multistakeholder Framework of Committment" on Internet Governance and Internet Freedom (FoC) which could take on board all the ideas and proposals expressed in the 20+ Internet Governance Principles declarations, resolutions and guidelines which has been adopted in the last two years by IBSA, Shanghai, OECD, CoE, OSCE, UNESCO and numerous non-governmental platforms, including the IGF Dynamic Coalition in Rights and Principles. The message from Baku should be to invite the MAG to form a WGIG like multistakeholder group of experts (during its February 2013 meeting in Paris) and to draft until the 8th IGF a first outline with the aim to have a substantial draft for high level discussion at the 9th IGF in 2014 and to adopt such a FoC by acclamation at the 10th IGF in 2015.
>   
> wolfgang
>

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