[governance] More (yawn) regulatory swing doors... US FCC...

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Possibly - but when consensus evolves around a set of "rules of the road" as it were, it would be an interesting thought experiment to drive on the right side of the road in a location where everybody else drives on the left.

Two alternatives for that -

1. Find and use a separate road that may not go to all the places you look to go, and hope that other individualists connect their own separate roads to yours to form a network

or

2. A car crash and pileup

--srs (iPad)

On 15-May-2013, at 16:19, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

> Hi Riaz
> 
> I think that all forms of multistakeholderism are supposed to be
> "deliberative multistakeholderism". (Is there any other kind?) The
> challenges are about preventing the deliberative processes from
> breaking down, which can happen in various ways. For example it can
> happen by not having a sufficient breadth of perspectives represented.
> 
> In regard to inclusion, I think what is meant with inclusiveness
> of governance systems is all stakeholders who are potentially
> affected by the decisions that are made can get their concerns
> and viewpoints appropriately taken into consideration. This
> inclusiveness is *not* supposed to come with a requirement to actually
> use the technical system that is the subject of the governance
> process. For example, even if a stakeholder wants to use a domain name
> system that allows multiple different registries for the same TLD to
> exist, and thereupon creates and uses such a system, that stakeholder
> can still participate in ICANN deliberative processes.
> 
> Greetings,
> Norbert
> 
> ** Acronyms used:
> TLD=Top Level Domain
> ICANN=Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
> 
> Riaz Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks Norbert.
>> 
>> MS certainly is an innovative approach. However to your categories we
>> must add the issue of deliberative multistakeholderism... where it is
>> not just the contest of interests - bargaining - but reasoned
>> argument - deliberation - so as to harness the diversity of views to
>> maximise success.
>> 
>> That MS does not take this imbalance, formal equality has its limits,
>> as real is a concern - particularly since BigCorporates organise at
>> this level as well - it is not a matter of excluding them, but
>> ensuring systems to ensure that this assymetry of power is dealt with
>> through democratic countermajortarian principles. But with legitimacy
>> treated lightly, the prospects of this seem dim.
>> 
>> Then there is the fetish with inclusion. It is not regarded as
>> ambivalent, but always good. Sometimes in democratic process
>> exclusion may be preferable, for eg those who refuse to participate
>> (as different from engaging with) in ICANN.
>> 
>> Just some thoughts...
>> 
>> Riaz
>> 
>> 
>> On 14 May 2013 13:55, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>> 
>>> Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> How does MS take this intimacy into account?
>>>> 
>>>> Weekend Edition May 10-12, 2013
>>>> <
>>> http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/10/another-industry-crony-at-the-fcc/print
>>> 
>>> Generally speaking, I think much of the support for
>>> multistakeholderism is not nearly cautious enough about potential
>>> problems of this kind, and the same can be said about most models
>>> of multistakeholder governance that are being proposed.
>>> 
>>> For a more in-depth discussion, we need to distinguish between
>>> (attempts at) what might be called "representative
>>> multistakeholderism" (example of which are MAG, ECWG,…) and "open
>>> multistakeholderism" (e.g. IETF, the RIRs,…).
>>> 
>>> With "representative multistakeholderism" I mean groups in which a
>>> limited number of seats are distributed to representatives of
>>> particular stakeholder categories who are then assumed to bring a
>>> reasonable approproximation of the totality of perspectives of that
>>> stakeholder category into the discussion.
>>> 
>>> With "open multistakeholderism" I mean settings which are open to
>>> anyone coming in and fully participating. The assumption is that
>>> this set of self-selected participants will bring reasonable
>>> approproximation of the totality of perspectives into the
>>> discussion.
>>> 
>>> In representative multistakeholderism, the selection processes are
>>> obviously critically important. The problem of potentially
>>> inappropriate "intimacy" now exists not only between government
>>> officials and lobbyists, but potentially also in regard to the
>>> selection processes, and in addition all stakeholder group
>>> representatives need to train themselves to avoid being
>>> inappropriately influenced.
>>> 
>>> In open multistakeholderism, the risk does not occur that
>>> viewpoints may get excluded because those who have power over the
>>> selection processes might want to suppress them, or might be unduly
>>> influenced e.g. by lobbyists to exclude people who happen to
>>> represent inconvenient viewpoint.
>>> 
>>> However it is still possible (and it certainly happens) that
>>> viewpoints may get suppressed in other ways. Mechanisms of such
>>> suppression include personal attacks, telling people that certain
>>> topics (which are inconvenient to some group) should not be
>>> discussed because they're so divisive or whatever, etc. It may be
>>> necessary to have posting rules and tell people to avoid kinds of
>>> postings, such as postings containing personal attacks, or postings
>>> that effectively say "topic X should not be discussed". Such
>>> posting rules do not constitute censorship, but quite the opposite.
>>> Censorship is an attempt to suppress (by means of control of
>>> communication media) the dissemination of some category of factual
>>> information and/or to suppress discussion of some category of
>>> topics. Reasonable posting rules aim to prevent such suppression
>>> from happening through interpersonal and group dynamic pressure.
>>> 
>>> Even though IGC is designed to be a civil society entity, the
>>> diversity of civil society within itself is great enough that the
>>> considerations of the above paragraph are already fully applicable
>>> to this list...
>>> 
>>> Greetings,
>>> Norbert
>>> 
>>> ** Acronyms used:
>>> MAG=Multistakeholder Advisory Group
>>> ECWG=Enhanced Cooperation Working Group
>>> IETF=Internet Engineering Task Force
>>> RIR=Regional Internet Registry
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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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