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

[michael gurstein]

My own opinion on this would be that folks such as you are describing would
in fact need to become somewhat pro-active to be "of" civil society --
whether they joined a specific group would depend on the circumstances. But
if they were concerned that certain norms were being expressed (for example
anti-stalking) or that normative based actions (anti-stalking measures) were
being proceeded with they would probably need to become part of some "group"
or other. However, the specifics of that "becoming part of" or of those
particular "groups" would vary dramatically all the way from "likes" on a
Facebook group to joining issue based organizations/demo's etc.etc.

As for the person from the industry group... as I understood it, he was
arguing that as a citizen he was "in" civil society at least for part of his
personal "situationalization" (grr... not a good word but I can't think of
another at the moment...

The question of his being "of" civil society really came down to whether
there was a personal normative alignment with his articulation of, and
identification with his corporate interests (wearing his corporate
situationalization hat) or with his "interests" as a citizen, wearing
another hat. 

Personally, at this point I would see whether someone was able and willing
to, for example, sign on to the normative (and programmatic) positions as
articulated by CS in WSIS 2003 and WSIS 2005 as a reasonable indication of
whether they were in alignment with CS in the IG space i.e. whether they
were "of" CS in the IG space. If yes, "yes", if no, "no"... (and for the
record, I see updating and adapting those normative (and programmatic
positions) as being the primary mission for CS going forward at least to
WSIS 2015).

Others may (and very likely will) want to develop their own normative
position going forward toward WSIS 2015 (without an initial agreement to
align themselves with CS WSIS 2003 and 2005) or whatever, and they may also
choose to call their postioning as CS, and who is to stop them; but for the
purposes of my own activities in this area that is how I will look to
proceed.

M

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Roland Perry
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 11:13 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Civil Society (was Re: caucus contribution,
consultation and MAG meeting)

In message <00ef01ce0c6e$60a5fd70$21f1f850$@gmail.com>, at 09:52:11 on Sat,
16 Feb 2013, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> writes
>To be a wee bit philosophical here... We should probably be talking 
>about those who are "in" CS (as for example, as a descriptive category 
>for those not in government, business etc.etc.) in contrast with those who
are "of" CS (i.e. those who have ascribed themselves or could be ascribed to
sharing/advocating in support of some set of normative principles/values
associated with CS...
>
>In this determination, "stalkers" could be seen as "in" CS without 
>necessarily be "of" CS (unless there was a grouping supporting "stalker 
>rights" as part of a large CS rights and principles initiative :)

I understand the distinction you are trying to make, but how does it work in
practice?

Recently a contributor here who is "in" a trade association was in effect
accused of being inextricably "of" that trade association (although he very
plausibly denied it).

On the other hand, we all know about the professional difficulty Government
employees have with trying to express "a personal view" 
divorced from their day-job.

The group of people I'm trying to place somewhere within the eco-system are
those "in" civil society who have been affected by "something bad happening
on the Internet". Do they have to join some sort of lobbying group in order
to become "of" something, and is that something within Civil Society, or one
of the other stakeholder groups (if the latter, which...)?
--
Roland Perry



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