[governance] Blogpost: Multistakeholderism vs. Democracy: My Adventures in "Stakeholderland"

[michael gurstein]

McTim et al you (T/A) can't have it both ways...

...one definition for purposes of exclusion and political representation and
a second for inclusion and broader PR purposes--the results of the first
definition being so ghastly and repulsive in their significance.

Remember this discussion is about the legitimacy of the current MS
processes, not about the nature of technical and academic
activities/self-definitions in the real world, at which point I, of course,
agree with you.

The point of the blogpost, to reiterate, was not to critique MS processes as
they might be useful in fairly narrow technical spheres, rather it was to
point out the extreme dangers in attempting to uncritically and
unreflectively apply these to larger and more "political" processes of
negotiation/decision making/even consultation. In these, the lack of
appropriate procedures and necessary mechanisms of transparency and
accountability, and the use of self-serving self-definitions can be very
damaging since what is being presented as one thing (e.g. representation of
a significant grouping such as the technical and academic community (or for
that matter Civil Society) is in fact something quite
different--representation by a very small self-covenanted highly
exclusionary group). 

FWIW, I think it is extremely important to be developing ways of responding
to highly complex, rapidly evolving, otherwise intractable, multi-party
issues such as for example, the need for global mechanisms to handle global
Internet related and other issues that don't fit very well into traditional
nation state, multilateral or sectoral stovepipes. I'm just not sure that
what is being done at the moment in those areas is the right way to go. And
I'm completely sure that not engaging in
critique/self-critique//examination/self-examination but rather proceeding
with fundamentally exclusionary processes of self-affirmation is precisely
not the way to go.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of McTim
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:00 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; David Allen
Subject: Re: [governance] Blogpost: Multistakeholderism vs. Democracy: My
Adventures in "Stakeholderland"

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:52 AM, David Allen
<David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu> wrote:
> from the blogpost
>
> ". the T/A stakeholder group includes probably no more than 3-400 
> people in the entire world .

I think this number is off by several orders of magnitude.

If the T&A Focal Point decides to limit the pool to just a few hundred folk,
then that is her choice, in that the CSTD is NOT a MS process, nor is it an
Internet Governance process, it's a top-down, inter-governmental process
that adds a few seats at the table for others to talk about EC, what it
means, and how it can be further
developed.   I've already stated that the T&A folk have over a decade
of experience in EC (doing it before the term came into being). I have no
problem with them limiting their choices.

>
> ". this group functions . as peers with a . group representing all of 
> the governments of the world, a second group (CS) representing all of 
> the citizens of the world, and a third group representing all of the 
> businesses of the world ."

The key word here is "peers".  How much of a vote do non-governmental folk
get in the CSTD?


--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route
indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel



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