[governance] Civil Society (was Re: caucus contribution, consultation and MAG meeting)

[parminder]

On Thursday 14 February 2013 01:26 PM, Roland Perry wrote:
> <snip)
> And that sounds like it includes my recent activity, which has been 
> working with interest-based charities, volunteers etc who have a focus 
> on one particular aspect of social justice, human rights and the rule 
> of law: Prevention of violence against women - in particular those who 
> are tracked and harassed via their Internet footprint (commonly on 
> social networking sites).
>
> However, I'm also aware that in order to achieve the goal of 
> protecting women, some people might characterise the techniques 
> involved as forms of selective censorship and attempts to strip away 
> anonymity (in both cases with respect to their attackers).
>
> So not every part of Civil Society necessarily has the same view on 
> core issues such as these.

No, congruity of views in not the test. Working for public interest is. 
Although there can be different and contested notions of public interest 
- and that space of contestation, negotiation and possible resolution/ 
harmonisation is called politics, (No, Suresh, politics is not what you 
think it is. It is a good word, although it, like almost anything else - 
markets for instance, can involve bad/ manipulative practises as well as 
outcomes.)

There is ages old distinction between public interest and private 
interest, including organised private interests, and this distinction 
holds now as ever. Any non-governmental body involved in public interest 
issues/ advocacy is a civil society organisation. In fact I will accept 
a definition broader than the one used by Council of Europe and quoted 
by Norbert. I will include organisation that dont believe in the concept 
of 'social justice', may in fact decry this concept as dangerous to 
people's liberties, (there are so many of them, esp in the US - BTW, 
Milton has said on this list that there is no thing like social justice) 
as long as such organisations truly believe that they are working in the 
larger public interest, and not narrow private interests of defined 
parties. (No, working, say, on disability rights cannot be called as 
working for private interests of defined parties. It is public interest 
work, and 'disabled people' are here to be considered as a distinct 
'public group' and not a private group. Dont have space or time to argue 
the basis of this distinction any further here.)

These distinctions are hallowed norms of democratic public life for 
decades now, if not centuries.... The extent of anti-democratic thought 
that has permeated into many people's conception of what is presented as 
a new political model of multistakeholderism is the reason that many 
progressive groups have begun to look at (such conceptions of) 
multistakeholderism itself with suspicion. It is this kind of normative 
loose-ness - that works for the interests of the more powerful rather 
than the less powerful, for whom democracy is supposed to work) - that 
is multistakeholderism's biggest enemy.


The normative basis and boundaries of and within multistakeholderism, 
and its relationship with democracy, have to saved, as well as expounded 
very clearly, for  it to be seriously considered as a form / system of 
participatory democracy. (If that is what MSism really is in the minds 
of its proponents.)

In the end, when such discussions as this one takes place, I can hardly 
ever stop myself from re(quoting) the father of free market thinking, 
Adam Smith, who said...

        "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for
        merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a
        conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise
        prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same
        trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing
        to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary. "


        "To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always
        the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or
        regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always
        to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be
        adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not
        only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious
        attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is
        never exactly the same with that of the public, who have
        generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public,
        and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and
        oppressed it."



What a profanity it is to utter something like this in any 
multistakeholder environment... nay, it now seems it may be inadmissible 
even within a IG related CS group.... Adam Smith I understand may have 
been unceremoniously evicted from such spaces. Poor guy - and he thought 
he was trying to make (or mark) market thinking and economic-logic as a/ 
the premier force in our social systems.

parminder






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