[governance] Inter-stakeholder issues in a multi-stakeholder environment
Mawaki Chango
kichango at gmail.com
Tue Nov 26 07:27:41 EST 2013
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Deirdre Williams <
williams.deirdre at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
Sure! We may declare everybody is CS and expect any institutional policy
process to open mike to whoever walks in and requests to speak as CS. From
my part, I was working on the basis of assumptions I thought were widely
recognized as part of the current landscape --and even an inevitable part.
If we want to talk about _multistakeholder_ processes, then we cannot but
recognize multiple stakeholders, thus boundaries. If we have set up IGC as
a membership structure, then we have necessarily identified criteria for
membership, thus boundaries. Mine was an attempt to clarify and even extend
those inevitable boundaries (based on our operating assumptions); I didn't
participate in creating them and am not necessarily advocating for
maintaining or reinforcing them. I can content myself with any other viable
way to make my voice and voices of any people with legitimate concerns
heard and taken into account.
I think I have said all what I had to say on this topic.
Thanks,
Mawaki
>
> 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>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
>> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>> governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> To be removed from the list, visit:
>> http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>>
>> For all other list information and functions, see:
>> http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
>> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>> http://www.igcaucus.org/
>>
>> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> “The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
> Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
> governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
> http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>
> For all other list information and functions, see:
> http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
> http://www.igcaucus.org/
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20131126/511b21dd/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
For all other list information and functions, see:
http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
http://www.igcaucus.org/
Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
More information about the Governance
mailing list