[governance] Inter-stakeholder issues in a multi-stakeholder environment

[George Sadowsky]

All,

Please note that the opinions that follow are my own personal opinions and are independent of any of the organizations with which I am affiliated.

I'm suggesting that we should modify both the words and concept of Sala's suggestions and my response.

Let's not think of doing anything formal; I think that both ends would balk at that, and for good reason.  Instead, I'll just be somewhat more active on this list, and if anything comes up with respect to the technical community that I can clarify or help with on an informal and personal basis, I'll try to do that.

So with that understanding, I'd like to throw out some thoughts to see if any of them resonate with any of you.

First, I believe that the introduction of the idea of multi-stakeholder approaches has had a significant negative effect between the Internet technical community and the community that has coalesced to represent classical civil society concerns.  As I recall in the 1990s, these communities were considerably intermingled; the promise of the Internet encouraged us not only to help it evolve in beneficial ways but also to explore how to exploit it for social and economic benefits.

The solidification of different stakeholder groups resulting from the WSIS process, caused informal differences to formalize.  Issues of representation, power, time at the microphone, visibility on (sometimes competing) lists and victory in arguments on those lists grew, while informal discussion gradually declined.  Polarization of opinion grew as willingness to respect others' opinions and to agree civilly to disagree suffered.  

Second, I believe that the specific role of the Internet technical community as a stakeholder group for the purposes of participating in the MAG and in the IGF is not properly understood.  At this point in its evolution, the Internet is a very complex system at most levels.  In order to understand fully the implications of policies that have to do with Internet administration, operation and governance, one has have a good technical understand of what the effect of those policies will be at a detailed level.  The primary role of representatives of the Internet technical community, in a MAG and IGF setting, is to study and understand such effects and to inform those deliberating about them.  That function may well extend toward consideration of broader thematic areas and suggestions of what needs to be discussed for continued Internet health, either short or long term, or both.  

In the grand scheme of things, this is a moderately narrow focus, but it is extremely important.

Third, I believe that one result of formalized multi-stakeholderism appears to have been to separate groups of people rather than separating groups of ideas.  A couple of examples illustrate the point.  To the extent that the Internet technical community does its work in guiding the MAG well to enhance Internet evolution, I believe that involved representatives of civil society benefit and should encourage their participation.  Conversely, representatives of the Internet technical community are people, and many are very likely to have beliefs that are quite consistent with the positions espoused by those same civil society representatives. The multi-stakeholder approach, however, seems to create a silo effect that minimizes or even denies the overlap of commonality of interest regarding issues by separating people into different silos.  So instead of recognizing positive overlap of beliefs, the approach encourages a focus on inter-stakeholder group separation.

Fourth, I'd like to propose a reconceptualization of the term "civil society."  In the multi-stakeholder instantiation that is now employed by the UN/MAG/IGF axis , it refers to groups if individuals, some representing organizations of various sizes that agree to various extents regarding the importance of individual rights of various kinds.  These groups represent civil society goals and are therefore grouped as "civil society" to populate that stakeholder group.  And although the goals of that group are generally quite positive, their actions are often based upon pushing back against other stakeholder groups, most notably government but also others.  Perhaps that reflects the reality of the tension between groups, but that tension is not moderated, as it might sometimes be, by people bridging groups instead of being siloed.

An alternate way to define civil society is to start with all people in the world and remove government involvement, the private sector involvement, and perhaps other large institutional influences.  To borrow a phrase from Apple, what is left is "the rest of us," and it contains fractions, generally large fractions of most of us as individuals.  

Most individuals have interests in more than one sector or stakeholder group.  We have interactions with government and may work for it.  Alternatively we may work for a private or other public sector organization.  Almost all of us are increasingly users of the internet.  Using this approach, perhaps an aggregate of 5 billion of us constitute "civil society," as opposed to the people who are now labeled as being in the civil society stakeholder group.   If we are all civil society in large parts of our lives, then we all have some claim to represent our views as we live.  Thus, a representative of Internet technology on the MAG is likely to, and has a right to opine on issues in the larger space, just as self-defined representatives of civil society positions have a right to do.  This illustrates again how the various stakeholder groups, or silos, are really quite intertwined, making the siloed and often competitive relationships between them at a formal level quite unrepresentative of the underlying reality,

I conclude that the multi-stakeholder approach that is accepted to be an approach to bring us together, has not insignificant negative externalities that serve to keep us apart.  We need to assess the multi-stakeholder approach with that in mind  If it is retained as an organizing principle, we need to recognize and understand those negative effects so that we can minimize them and can exploit the positive aspects of that approach.

This is a much longer note than I ordinarily write, but it has helped me to understand some of the roots of the often unnecessarily antagonistic relationship between proponents of issues important to civil society and technical community experts guiding the evolution of the Internet.  Thank you for taking the time to read it.  I realize that what I have written, and any discussion of it, is considerably more nuanced than what I have presented above.  However, I have tried to present the core of some ideas that I think may be useful.  The more nuanced discussion can and will come later.

Your comments are welcome.

George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  
On Nov 23, 2013, at 1:53 PM, michael gurstein wrote:

> Thanks George and it is a potentially interesting proposition.
>  
> But I must say that I’m unclear as to precisely what role is being suggested here.  If the role is to attempt to frame the diversity of voices being articulated in civil society (in my case including those of the community informatics community for example) in a manner in which it can be more readily understood/assimilated/responded to by the technical community I think that is very useful.
>  
> If it is, on the other hand, to act as a more or less “authoritative”/designated “filter” of communications/voices from Civil Society to the Technical Community then I can see quite considerable difficulty and controversy resulting, if nothing else, from a concern within certain CS elements of being “silenced/ignored”.
>  
> (The same clarification would need to be made if the role is perceived as being more of an “honest broker”—i.e. the question being, particularly on the CS side, how inclusive of all CS interests/voices is the “brokerage” committed/able to be.
>  
> Perhaps some clarification is in order here either from yourself in how you perceive the role, or from Ian or Sala on how they presented the role (and perceive it from a CS perspective).
>  
> (I should also possibly add here that a significant number of those active in the Community Informatics community would, by their background, qualifications, experience and current activities qualify as being “techies” of one sort or another.  Whether they would qualify as being members of the “Technical Community” (TC) under what I understand to be the criteria for inclusion within the TC as currently defined by the formal TC structures I’m not sure, as their orientation tends to be towards technical design and fabrication in support of social/digital inclusion and social justice.)
>  
> Best to all,
>  
> M
>  
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of George Sadowsky
> Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 8:04 AM
> To: Ian Peter
> Cc: Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Fadi Speech to ALAC, Brazil 2014 Meeting and need for IGC and civil society Liaisons
>  
> Hi, Ian,
>  
> Sala and I talked while we were both in Buenos Aires.  Perhaps I can clarify my sense of what she may have been proposing.
>  
> There is at the moment somewhat of a gulf between the technical community and the list(s) used by the proclaimed representatives of civil society.  Sometimes such differences of opinion, as well as fact, can be resoled rather quickly if they are discussed directly by people on both sides of the issue, rather than being left to fester and feed growing suspicion and/or discontent.  I think that Sala thought that having some announced or implied line of communication, clearly non-exclusive, might be helpful at times.  I thought so, too.
>  
> Having seen little response from anyone on this list, perhaps the idea isn't welcome in the more formalized sense in which it has been presented, and I can understand that.  I think that perhaps I could be more active from time to time in the discussions that occur, and that might help to bridge some differences between the communities.  Although I consider myself more technical in the context of Internet governance discussions, I  do have roots in development activities that are quite consistent with some of the expressions of opinion posted to this and similar lists.
>  
> George
>  

<<trimmed>>
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