[governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime

[Milton L Mueller]

All

It would be a mistake to let this discussion degenerate into categorizations of empty stakeholder abstractions: governments as "upholders of human rights" (cough!), technical community as good or bad, etc. This is one of the truly silly things about the decision the I* organizations made to label the proper approach to Internet governance as "the multistakeholder model." As if there were "the" single model (there isn't), as if multistakeholderism actually described IETF (it doesn't), as if the presence of multiple stakeholders in a process automatically means good, freedom and efficiency-enhancing governance (it doesn't).

Talking about "techies" - either pro or con - is just not helpful at this point. Same goes for claims regarding "civil society." Better to talk about specific values and objectives and how VERY SPECIFIC institutional mechanisms contribute to them, or not. There is some legitimate space for concern about who is represented in meetings and decision making, and I very much do share Jeremy's concern about the I* organizations running away with the ball, but finger-pointing regarding stakeholder categories is pointless.

A bit of a historical correction for you also, Mawaki. It was a world led by the _United States_ government that gave us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not a world led by "governments." We rammed it down everyone's throats, and anyway the formulation of and advocacy for rights comes from a vibrant civil society under certain kinds of constitutional regimes, not from states as states. The US had just won WW2, and had unparalleled hegemony over Europe, Japan and many other parts of the world. It never would have happened otherwise. I don't think that lesson has any clear relevance to current discussions regarding IG, but if you think it does, perhaps you can explain in more detail.

--MM
________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] on behalf of Mawaki Chango [kichango at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 12:53 PM
To: Internet Governance; McTim
Cc: Jeremy Malcolm; Bits bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime

Thanks, Jeremy, for alerting us about what is going on with the "technical" community.
Personally, I'm okay with moving the call for endorsement to 24hrs earlier --just as I agree with the need for more private/f2f strategizing.

McTim, multistakeholder does not mean anti-governmentalism. Nor does it say the "technical community" takes over from government. It really means "on equal footing" etc., governments included, if you ask me. Furthermore, I do not think I have any track record for celebrating governments, but I'll say this. In some circumstances, governments may be evil, but it was also a world led by governments which gave us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related texts, which have served as formidable normative tools for social progress. And sometimes, some of them put a stake into seeing those norms upheld.

Left to their own devices, techies don't necessarily have the best interest of the user at heart (I suspect Vint Cerf would agree with me since while opposing the notion that Internet is a HR, he suggested that designers could do a better job in making the technology more HR-friendly, so to speak, in short.) While they do a lot of wonderful things --there's no denying that, not of my part anyway-- techies cannot write a clean and accurate user guide for... users! It is my sense that they are mostly impressed with impressing their peers, as is often the case with minority groups of meritocrats. So yes, seeing "multistakeholderism" as the opportunity to shift from "government-centric" to "techno-centric" should be a matter of concern to CS --or to any plain citizen, for that matter.

I'm just saying -- "on equal footing" my dear!

Mawaki



On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:37 PM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com<mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com>> wrote:
Jeremy,

On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:57 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org<mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org>> wrote:
> I haven't had a chance to write about the technical community meeting that
> took place at lunchtime today, but it felt (to me) like an astonishing
> power-grab in progress - they are forming a new coalition that will create a
> "grassroots" campaign, with the pre-determined objective of reasserting the
> primacy of "the" multi-stakeholder model against "government-centric"
> models.

CS should not have a problem with that, we should embrace it as it
gives CS more clout than a Inter-gov model, no?


--
Cheers,

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


____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto: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/20131024/534d860d/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