[governance] Evidence-based policy-making and impact assessments for Internet-related policies

[Thomas Lowenhaupt]

Andrea,

Here in New York City hundreds of years of experience with poor and 
sometimes disastrous land-uses led to inclusion in the city charter of a 
formalized public review process of real estate developments. It's 
called the Uniform Land-Use Review Procedure (see here 
<http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/luproc/ulpro.shtml>). This ULURP 
provides for the public's engagement as land-use proposals are reviewed 
by the affected community boards, borough boards, the city planning 
commission, and finally the city council.  But there's no requirement 
for a similar review of our digital resources.

Recently the Bloomberg Administration appointed a .NYC Community 
Advisory Board to: Provide feedback on the development of .nyc including 
strategies for using, delegating and marketing the top level domain; 
Discuss future uses of the domain including public utilities, smart city 
ideas and future planning uses such as email addresses for residents; 
Act as a community ambassador to provide updates to your constituency or 
sector, and relay feedback to the group; and to Provide input into 
policy and content for community.nyc. I'm a member of the Board and our 
initial meeting is later this week. While this is a positive step it 
remains ad hoc, with no charter mandate and no scope beyond our new TLD 
review.

One City Council Member, Gale Brewer, has bemoaned the lack of a ULURP 
for the "Internet." There's a city-wide election this year and it's my 
hope that candidates will be asked if they support a ULURP for the Net. 
I hope similar efforts are underway elsewhere, but am unaware of same. 
If anyone knows of city UNETURP (ouch!) efforts , please let me know.

Tom Lowenhaupt

On 4/29/2013 6:10 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> during the discussions concerning a possible statement by the IGC on 
> the "nature of the Internet" someone - I think it was Milton - 
> underlined the need to have a clear "problem definition" and to assess 
> the impact of different policy options. I also noted that others - I 
> think it was Mawaki - pointed out that this is rather high bar for an 
> "advocacy" statement.
>
> I take absolutely no position on the need for analysis / assessment 
> before the IGC makes a statement on this, or other topics. The 
> decision to issue a statement as the IGC is of course fully the 
> responsibility of IGC members, which I'm not.
>
> However, this particular exchange led me to a broader consideration. 
> As you might know, the European Commission (similarly to other 
> governments / public authorities) has a formal obligation to conduct 
> an "impact assessment" before proposing new initiatives. In reality, 
> there are some subtleties - not all "initiatives" require it - but the 
> key concept remains.
>
> You can find further information on the European Commission's approach 
> to impact assessments at 
> http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/index_en.htm. If you are 
> interesed and have plenty of time at your disposal, you might also be 
> interested in two recent papers analysing how well (or not :) the EC 
> has performed in this particular area (G. Lucchetta, "Impact 
> Assessment and the Policy Cycle in the EU", 2013, 
> http://www.ceps.eu/book/impact-assessment-and-policy-cycle-eu; O. 
> Fritsch, C. Radaelli, L. Schrefler, A. Renda, "Regulatory Quality in 
> the European Commission and the UK: Old questions and new findings", 
> 2012, 
> http://www.ceps.eu/book/regulatory-quality-european-commission-and-uk-old-questions-and-new-findings). 
>
>
> When conducting impact assessments, there are certain agreed 
> procedures which are rather generic or "horizontal", i.e. applying to 
> different policy areas; but there are also add-on procedures and 
> methodologies that are used when tackling more specific policy areas / 
> impacts. To continue with the example of the European Commission 
> Impact Assessment procedures, which are the ones I know best, specific 
> guidelines / methodologies to assess the impact on SMEs, 
> administrative simplification and fundamental rights have been 
> introduced throughout the years.
>
> I wonder whether there is a need to introduce specific guidelines / 
> methodologies to assess the impact of Internet-related policies (which 
> I define on the fly as "policies (including regulation, soft law, 
> research activities) which either impact on, or are impacted by, the 
> Internet). Questions that come to my mind:
>
> - is the Internet an important enough phenomenon / infrastructure to 
> justify having specific methodologies to assess the impact of policies 
> on it, and its impact on policies?
> - are existing methodologies (e.g. concerning the impact on ICT or 
> telecommunication networks generically) enough to cover this need?
> - which kind of basic questions should one ask when assessing the 
> impact of Internet-related policies?
> - which kind of methodological tools (and from which disciplines) 
> should one consider when performing such impact assessment?
>
> Food for thought. I'd appreciate all your comments / reactions, either 
> on the list or also privately.
>
> Ciao,
>
> Andrea
>
> --
> I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. 
> Keep it in mind.
> Twitter: @andreaglorioso
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130429/b8bf7af4/attachment.htm>
-------------- 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