[governance] WisdomTF (was Re: Evidence-based policy-making and impact assessments for Internet-related policies)

Fri Jun 21 06:09:08 EDT 2013

Thanks, Norbert, for your clear and informative responses. The goal of
WisdomTF is commendable although (if the experience on this list were to be
of any lesson) the task might be more daunting to reach consensus on what's
good (what works and to what extent) and what's not in terms of policy than
it is with technical standards and IETF. Nonetheless, there might be proven
good experiences, "best practices" and critical lessons learned, and it
will go a long way to have a place, or a couple of them, globally
recognized as places where one can get robust, state-of-the-art information
or knowledge or experience on the critical policy issues of the day.

While I'm at it, it just occurs to me that one of the main challenges will
first be to distinguish the question "what works?" (or "what's good?" in
that sense) from these questions "what's good? what's better? what's best?"
in the normative sense, although the normative dimension is also crucial in
policy-making. I would think whenever relevant, necessary and feasible, the
normative layer should be addressed upfront and set aside. That may be the
case for things that have not been tried anywhere we know of, which might
be rare. But even for those that have already been tried in various
contexts with varying results, one might want to identify those results
that would be worth pursuing, which may be both a normative and a pragmatic
thing. In any case, the monitoring and feedback aspect of this effort will
be crucial as that will be the ultimate sanction to what does work. Just
thinking aloud (or rather with my fingers) before my morning coffee or
substitute thereof.

At any rate, it would be very interesting to see whether the IETF-type of
culture can be created in the policy arena regarding discussion of the
issues and decision-making. I hope you'll soon get that opportunity to keep
this rolling.
Best,

Mawaki

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 3:45 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

> Hi Mawaki - good to hear from you!
>
> Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am not sure I clearly understand the purpose of the Wisdom Task
> > Force proposal you referred to in your message below.
>
> To facility good, globally coordinated governance for global issues.
>
> One way that WisdomTF can be described is “an IETF for global policy
> issues”. IETF develops technical specifications which are implemented
> by the people who develop the software and hardware that makes the
> Internet work. WisdomTF will develop recommendation documents on
> global public policy matters, with the aim of informing national
> parliamentary decision-making processes.
>
> > Is it guidance
> > for members of parliaments and their staff when developing policies?
>
> Yes, and for members of the media and the general public too.
>
> I hope that eventually it will be political suicide to simply ignore
> the insights and recommendations of the relevant WisdomTF documents. :-)
>
> > Is there a geographical scope implied (eg, EU)?
>
> The intended geographical scope is global, since global concerns
> should really be addressed globally, and everyone worldwide (or at
> least everyone who is able to access the Internet and to communicate
> internationally, in writing) must be enabled to take part in the
> deliberative processes.
>
> > Is there a
> > connection with policy research and evaluation, in terms or methods
> > or otherwise?
>
> The idea is that WisdomTF output documents (which are intended to be
> input documents for national political process) should inform not only
> about possible policy choices, but also about what is known about the
> likely results of those policy choices. Hence where available, formal
> outputs of policy research and evaluation should certainly be
> referenced.
>
> > What's next?
>
> In the absence of funding, right now the idea is dormant waiting for me
> to get to a point of having some time available for working on it...
>
> > Will a (multistakeholder) group be formed to follow-up on this?
>
> Ideally yes - I'm not sure yet though how to achieve that.
>
> > How did you come up with the list of WGs?
>
> No real process -- just pondering about what are some important
> topics for which it might be relatively easy to reach critical mass.
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
>
> > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> >
> > > Andrea Glorioso <andrea at digitalpolicy.it> wrote on Mon, 29 Apr 2013:
> > >
> > > > 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).
> > >
> > > Sorry that I'm only now getting around to responding to the very
> > > important and interesting questions that you're raising... hopefully
> > > I'm not too late and the topic is still of interest,
> > >
> > > > 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?
> > >
> > > I would respond to this question with a clear yes, but more
> > > importantly, it is becoming increasingly impossible to separate the
> > > Internet, and what it enables, from what used to be the offline
> > > world but isn't so offline anymore.
> > >
> > > I would argue that this causes significant aspects of the
> > > traditional ways of thinking about public policy and about the
> > > corresponding legal frameworks to be not suitable for todays's
> > > world. Many if the underlying heuristics and assumptions are not
> > > valid anymore.
> > >
> > > > - are existing methodologies (e.g. concerning the impact on ICT or
> > > > telecommunication networks generically) enough to cover this need?
> > >
> > > No... those methodologies may be less badly outdated than what
> > > experts on legal systems (the lawyers) learn during their studies,
> > > but the world is changing so quickly nowadays that all existing
> > > methodologies are already outdated by the time that they're
> > > recognized as “existing methodologies”. What we now need is
> > > analytical methods that are updated, through an appropriate
> > > multistakeholder process, in real time, as the world is changing.
> > >
> > > > - which kind of basic questions should one ask when assessing the
> > > > impact of Internet-related policies?
> > >
> > > The same kind of questions that have always been appropriate to ask
> > > for proposals of any kind: What is the intended effect? What is the
> > > cost? How likely is it that the intended effect will be achieved?
> > > What are the risks in regard to negative side-effects? How can
> > > those risks be managed or mitigated? What is the potential cost of
> > > mitigation measures that may be needed? What negative side-effects
> > > are likely to remain after any mitigation measures? Is, in view of
> > > all of the risks and costs, the proposed measure worthwhile?
> > >
> > > > - which kind of methodological tools (and from which disciplines)
> > > > should one consider when performing such impact assessment?
> > >
> > > I find the "logical thinking process" tools of Goldratt's Theory of
> > > Constraints to be highly helpful for all kinds of analysis and
> > > deliberation in complex systemic contexts. See e.g.:
> > >
> > >   H. William Dettmer:
> > >   The Logical Thinking process. A Systems Approach to Complex
> > > Problem Solving.
> > >   Milwaukee, WI, USA, 2007 (Quality Press)
> > >   ISBN 978-0-87389-723-5
> > >
> > > On top of that I believe that we need an international
> > > multistakeholder process to develop more specific analysis
> > > methodologies, to keep them up to date, and to apply them to
> > > current policy challenges. That is a primary objective of the
> > > Wisdom Task Force proposal http://WisdomTaskForce.org/RFB/1
> > >
> > > Greetings,
> > > Norbert
> > >
> > > --
> > > Recommendations for effective and contructive participation in IGC:
> > > 1. Respond to the content of assertions and arguments, not to the
> > > person 2. Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you
> > > accept
> > >
> > >
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>
>
>
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