[governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime

[Milton L Mueller]

David
I like your reply, it is very reasonable and I agree with most of your points.
You've identified in greater detail how the concept of MuSH is ill-defined. I agree that we seem to know better what we are avoiding (pure intergovernmentalism) than what we are pushing for. One problem with this avoidance behavior is that intergovernmentalism can easily sneak in through the back door; e.g., via the idea that states are "just another stakeholder," or via Jeremy's willingness to accept states as "more representative and legitimate," or via empowering institutions such as GAC, and so on. If we don't know the difference between good institutions and Frankenstein-like stitch ups, we are going to get into trouble.

Indeed, civil society as a whole seems really lost, imho; it is losing its ability to shape the agenda with it's me-tooism.

While the Best Bits and IGC sign on statement recognizes that the term MuSH has a variety of meanings, it makes the serious mistake of focusing the Rio meeting on the general "architecture" of Internet governance and calling for general principles that are already in old WSIS statements (inclusive, people-centric, development-oriented, blah, blah). It has not translated those principles into specific proposals that would give them any meaning. Or rather, the only specific proposals - that IGF and CSTD WGEC should play an important role - are nothing if not descriptions of the status quo. And the status quo sucks, to use a highly technical academic term. That is why I refused to sign on to the statement.

These kinds of mushy statements about MuSH leave the initiative entirely in the hands of the I* organizations (and their institutional agendas) and in the hands of states - who WILL be making specific proposals, believe me.

CS is not advocating a single meaningful reform of the existing IG environment. That's sad. Others on this list will therefore have to organize another sign on letter that actually promotes something specific - hope you will help with that effort, David. And anyone else interested, please contact me privately.

Finally, I'd like to call your attention to another potentially damaging assumption that is crippling civil society's approach to the Brazil summit. It is the equation of NSA reform with "Internet governance." See this blog post for greater development of that argument:

http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/10/26/get-realist-dont-confuse-nsa-regulation-with-internet-regulation/

--MM
________________________________
From: David Cake [dave at difference.com.au]
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 8:53 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Milton L Mueller
Subject: Re: [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime


On 25/10/2013, at 2:05 AM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at SYR.EDU<mailto:mueller at SYR.EDU>> wrote:


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."

Yes. We have a range of quite different models that might be called multi-stakeholder, and an even broader range of mechanisms that can be made to fit into a multi-stakeholder ecosystem without, itself, being directly multi-stakeholder.

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).

No one who has closely observed the ICANN GNSO would ever think multi-stakeholderism automatically translates into goodness, freedom and efficiency.
Multi-stakeholderism is a clumsy label. Parts of the current system are formally multi-stakeholder, parts are very open, and parts are perhaps a closely guarded club that is justified by some notion of 'meritocracy' (and parts - such as the GAC - are even multi-lateral). I argued the point in Bali several times that everyone is much clearer on what we are avoiding (government centric multilateralism) than what we are seeking. And that is just fine at this point. If we are still that unclear after the Brazil meeting, then that might be more of a problem.

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.

The 'Technical Community Role in Global Internet Governance' workshop on Thursday made it fairly clear that the division between technical community and civil society (or other stakeholder groups) is a fairly artificial one, with many of us filling a variety of different roles at different times, and technical organisations often acting very much as part of civil society. And with many 'techies' in civil society or other stakeholder groups (I've got a comp sci degree etc myself, so I'm an example), and policy wonks and lawyers working for technical community orgs. The way we organise division between stakeholder categories is artificial - and while it can be useful to ensure balance, it can create as many problems as it solves. We've discussed many times the problems of artificial divisions within ICANN leading to division, siloization, and pointless competition for resources between groups that might otherwise be allies. Avri brought up in that workshop the argument (that will be very familiar to you, Milton, but perhaps not to others) that more dynamic interest groups etc might often be far more useful and appropriate than the fairly simple and rigid notions of stakeholder groups that we have now.

It is worth bearing in mind as we proceed with this process that the stakeholder group categories etc are very artificial and there are many different options to approaching it,  that multi-stakeholderism is a very broad, vague description that doesn't tell you much without a lot more detail.

Cheers

David

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