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

Deirdre Williams williams.deirdre at gmail.com
Mon Nov 25 11:53:00 EST 2013


I began this message 12 days ago in response to a thread started by Michael
Gurstein
Let's Get Real Folks--Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] DISCLOSURE REQUEST
Re: Funding Available for Strengthening Civil Society
I gave up. Now I am encouraged to try again by this new thread
Re: [governance] Inter-stakeholder issues in a multi-stakeholder environment
begun by George Sadowsky.

Is there any way to shift the focus from the people to the issues?
In the final analysis everyone belongs to civil society. That point was
made by a representative of a local telecommunications company at a recent
workshop on IXPs held in Saint Lucia. As he said, his children also query
the speed of the Internet at home when they have to do their homework. The
only people excluded from civil society are incarcerated prisoners, and
that also is a statement that can be questioned. If I understand him
correctly George Sadowsky is making the same point. Civil society is us -
all of us.

Instead of trying to disentangle the stakeholders from one another could we
 try to reach agreement on the aspects of the issues? If no one is wearing
any particular hat then it should be possible to obtain a clearer picture
of the issues that need to be discussed, and the multiple aspects of those
issues.

Surely at least a part of the "multistakeholder" configuration of WSIS was
to provide a means of identifying and harnessing the different types of
expertise available, to tackle the different aspects of the challenges
created by the Internet and its proliferation. In hindsight the intention
must have been partially collaboration and cooperation. Sadly the focus
shifted to a third "c" - competition - so that instead of team-powered
problem solving we ended up with separation and power struggles. And now on
top of that comes betrayal and the death of trust. And the "little people"
the "grassroots" become even further excluded from discussion of the
interests that affect them, washed out in a wave of personalities and
accusations.

We do not need to let this breakdown continue. We CAN work together, we've
done it before. Trust can be rebuilt. It is a hard slow process, but each
of us retains threads of trust which we consider still to be viable.
Otherwise we would not be communicating at all. Weave these threads
together and we can build something stronger than what existed before,
because we will be depending on one another instead of on abstract external
factors. And together we will be able to disaggregate the issues into their
component aspects and negotiate a point of balance among the differing
needs of government, technicians, business and society.

Deirdre


On 24 November 2013 12:59, George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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-- 
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
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