AW: [governance] Principles

[Karl Auerbach]

On 10/02/2012 02:00 AM, Kettemann, Matthias
(matthias.kettemann at uni-graz.at) wrote:

> @ Karl

>> I rather take a rather different position, which is that
>> stakeholderism is oligarchy and not democratic at all.

> Multistakholerdism means - in abstract - that all those who are
> touched by the normative outcomes of a normative process should have
> a say in the process. MS can be oligarchic if only some are heard
> (because of their position, wealth etc.). But it can be desigend in a
> way that avoids this dilemma.

There are problems with your formulation.

First is the assumption that the internet does not touch every person on 
this planet.  There may be a few that are so detached from at least 
one-level indirect effect, but vanishingly few.  And that number is 
decreasing every day.  We should assume that the number not affected by 
the internet is essentially zero.

Second is the problem that someone must be the god - or king - who gets 
to measure the degree of "touched by the normative outcomes of a 
normative process" - in other words, a Chamberlain or gatekeeper who 
gets to say who gets to participate and who does not.  Historically that 
role has proven to be one of both great power for shaping and 
controlling the outcome, and usually making a nice profit.

When one adopts an exclusionary process, of which stakeholderism is a 
prime example, one should expect manipulation and exclusion to occur.

The world is not a nice halcyon place where everyone places nice late 
1960's flower-power games, even though that seems to be the mental model 
of much of what has passed to date for "Internet Governance".

Rather the world is a place of power politics.  It is a place for 
Machiavelli ("The Prince") rather than Heinlein ("Stranger In A Strange 
Land".)

   Once one begins to deny the role of democracy - to deny one person, 
one vote, whether representative or direct - then the system will 
quickly be captured by those groups that, because they are 
organizational rather than flesh-and-blood, will be have the resources 
and time to be ever vigilant, ever present, and very effective at 
superseding the popular, democratic point of view.  One has only to look 
to the degree to which ICANN has been captured by those it is purported 
to regulate to see how this can happen.

Now, there is value in the opinion and expertise of "stakeholders". 
There is no reason to bar them from presenting opinions and, if they can 
be trusted to be objective, information.  Here in the US that takes the 
form of "lobbying" and it is a huge industry that no-one can say is 
incapable of having a very strong influence.

But we don't give stakeholder lobbyists the right to vote.  But that is 
what people are suggesting via the use of "stakeholder" in internet 
governance.

	--karl--








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