[governance] deliberative democracy (was Re: Big Porn v. Big Web Ruling Could Spell Trouble for ICANN...)

[Norbert Bollow]

Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
As for 'control by the states' I am happy to
> have any kind of direct democracy not only in IG space but also all
> other spaces of global governance (your view on this please). And
> till we have it, instead of one country dictating to the world,
> representational democracy will do (while all efforts at national and
> international level should be kept up to see that these purported
> 'representatives' are indeed democratically so). Imperfect democracy
> and representativity cannot be taken as an excuse for perpetuating
> hegemony and one-country dictatorship.

This is very true. At the same time, while seeking to improve the
functional systems of democracy, we can also work on providing these
(imperfect but better than all currently available alternatives)
decision making systems with better information on what policy
options are available and what the likely outcomes are.

As a matter of fact I have been thinking quite a bit about what can be
done (as per the theme of this year's IGF) in Internet governance to
make an effective and significant contribution towards sustainable
human, social and economic development which goes beyond what happens
anyway (quite independently of the IGF) if IETF, IANA, the RIRs & co
continue to do what they have been doing, and governments and ITU etc.
don't get in the way. I mean, what is the value that the IGF process can
potentially add towards this particular, rather ambitious but quite
important and absolutely needed, objective?

I have come to the conclusion that this added value will, if it is to
be successfully brought into existence at all, have to be in the area of
catalysing the development of a culture of deliberative
democracy regarding Internet governance topics, together with the
development of suitable online tools. I mean this not as a replacement
for existing decision making systems of representative democracy, but
to complement them, with the goal of those decision making processes
becoming better informed. If this succeeds, it can inspire broader
application of similar approaches in other topic areas, including those
that are more directly critically relevant to achieving the goal of
sustainable human, social and economic development.

(I'm of course talking about my ECTF proposal again, using different
words in trying again to communicate what I've tried to communicate
before, but which I maybe have not succeeded in communicating
effectively enough.)

Greetings,
Norbert

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