[governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime

[Mawaki Chango]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
<suresh at hserus.net>wrote:

> I think what Bill is saying is that there appears to be a refusal to
> acknowledge the technical community as civil society or even
> multistakeholder in nature, so that any outreach from them is characterized
> as a power grab, and there appears to be a refusal to engage in their
> processes.
>

I read the use of the phrase "power grab" (which I did not bring in the
discussion) as an individual's assessment --hence, inevitably subjective
somewhat-- of a *punctual* situation, not a characterization of everything
a given stakeholder group is or does in this setting. Once it was used to
characterize a behavior in a given context (and only in that context) the
notion can be discussed, assumptions can be made or implications drawn
based on its face value (after all the person making that assessment is not
what you might particularly call an outlier in this group), or conversely
it may be challenged --which is all good. That's part of the normal
discussion, without anyone claiming that this is the definitive
characterization of what a whole group of (necessarily diverse) human
beings is all about.

So now leaving the "power grab" meme aside (for now), I never seriously got
into the discussion as to who is CS and who's not (I guess as a matter of
principle, I must be cautious using the term "never" if only because
computer memory has outpaced human memory in this day and age. But
seriously, I never spent time on that as far as I can remember.) The way I
see this --and please be mindful that this is not a theory or anything I
need or want to get universal agreement on-- is that every natural person
(as in the biological individual human beings) leaving among other human
beings is part of CS *unless*... Unless they willingly take on the role to
represent or be the agent of a non-natural person, whether it is the
government apparatus or a private corporation or any legally incorporated
collection of natural individuals (which raises the question of CS
organizations I'll return to below.) In this case, it is preferably up to
the individual to rally with the stakeholder group where his or her
principal (organization of affiliation) belongs. Or alternatively, other
people who feel the participation of any such individual(s) in CS processes
may skew the outcomes, presumably toward the interests of their principal
which are seen as not aligned with CS interests in the subject matter may
bring up objections. At this point I have no clear cut guidance to offer as
to how to handle objections and counter-objections of that kind. I just
have a sense that if a voluntary resolution cannot be reached, then it one
way or the other becomes a matter of common sense as well as the
plausibility of presumptions and claims made by all involved, in the view
of the public opinion. I guess what I am trying to say is that it will
always be difficult to have an authoritative procedure to resolve this in a
clean manner, if the parties are not willing to cooperate and be honest
with themselves about the difference that there might be between their
current motivations and the goals and interests of CS.

I must immediately add that as we "practice" them, I agree that those
identities are mostly artificial (or at least circumstantial) and as a
result, they are inevitably shifting from a context to another for the same
individual.


>
> Civil society being as amorphous as it is, there is absolutely no bar to
> any caucus or combination of people forming with their own views and ideas
> - the problem lies in objecting to other such groups forming, and calling
> them power grabs.
>

In my view, it is the prerogative of any such groups to form, and they'd do
so presumably whenever they have a distinct set of objectives or interests.
They are entitled to advocate for their views and simply get down to work
for their realization without being called "power grabs." I would assume it
would take more than that (like for instance, a deliberate attempt to shun
or overshadow other stakeholders) for anyone to call that power grab.


> In such a case, is it to be implied that other sections of civil society
> too are intent on their own such "power grabs" where they, not the people
> over in the other "power grab" call the shots and drive their ideology?
>

Yes, no group has the monopoly of power grabs (reason why I rejected above
the notion that it was a characterization or labeling of a particular
stakeholder group as a whole.) CS may be subject to power grabs, too, as we
are diverse and any subset of CS may be tempted to overly influence the
process at the expense and sometimes at the exclusion of others.

The notion of CS I have outlined above has not addressed the case of
"professional" and organized CS (through registered/incorporated legal
structures.) As organizations, they have their mission and their agenda,
and there might be plenty of private citizens around the world who might
not be interested by such mission and agenda or others may criticize them
for not using the right methods to achieve the good they claim, etc. On the
face value however, and using common sense, we do understand that there is
a fundamental difference between, say, Human Right Watch or Doctors Without
Borders or Bytes for All, etc. (my understanding of the latter being only
based on their name, so I might be wrong, but please stay on the bigger
picture), and, say, the International Association of Accountants or the
American Association of Banks (may not be the exact names, but you
understand my point... trade associations.) Maybe one way to put it is that
any individual/private citizen who finds herself in the kind of situation
the former type of organizations purport to improve may (I didn't say
"will") benefit from their action without the said individual having to pay
a fee or a due for that. Which is not to say they are not membership
organizations with due paying members. But their actions are neither
primarily nor exclusively motivated by the personal interests of their
members, nor are they carried out for solely and directly in the interest
of those individual members. So to the extent this information is
available, mission, values, interests, goals, objectives as well as actual
behaviors and actions matter in appreciating in every context what (or
rather whom) CS entails. Hence, as said in another thread, the importance
for IGC (or global CS in IG) to clearly formulate its mission/values/goals
and its interests, etc.

In sum, CS at least in a global context such as this one is a broad notion
that must have room for many inevitably diverse actors, and be open enough
for people to be able to go and come based on what matters to them at a
given point in time. At the very least, I'd say it includes the following:
individuals as private citizens (representing no other than themselves),
organized CS as characterized above and individuals acting on their behalf,
and other sub-culture groups (to mean a specialized subset, not anything
secondary) such as academia and technical community. However, there will be
times and contexts where those specialized subsets may have a distinctive
enough identity (based on their goals and interests, etc.) to justify they
stand as a distinct stakeholder group in their own right.

I'd hope that, going forward and until further notice, the above have
precedence on anything else one might interpret that I mean to say when
discussing about Internet stakeholders, their relationship and their
relevance from CS perspective, etc. Again, it is just my own pragmatic
approach to the question, which is not informed by theory or research. So
yeah, I might have said one or two things that someone would find
inaccurate in which case I would be glad to be enlightened. But please
don't have me to have to come up here and defend myself ;-) My 2 cents, and
only that.

Mawaki


>
> That doesn't sound terribly conducive to any sort of consensus
>
> -suresh
>
> Mawaki Chango [24/10/13 09:50 +0000]:
>
>  Hi,
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 1:24 AM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Bill,
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 8:48 PM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Hi
>>> >
>>> > Despite Chris' wording, I don't view this effort as a power grab, a
>>> framing
>>> > that seems to suggest that there's fixed pie of power (?) that one
>>> group
>>> > wishes to take at the expense of others.  Fadi went to Dilma, they
>>> talked
>>> > and agreed to hold a multistakeholder meeting with yet to be fully
>>> agreed
>>> > goals, and he came to the people he knows and said ok we need to get
>>> > organized and have an open coalition that goes beyond us to include
>>> people
>>> > who favor MS processes even if they have different ideas of the
>>> desirable
>>> > end states.  Hence the meeting was meeting was open and you were there
>>> to
>>> > voice your concerns.  If you decide you don't want to coordinate with
>>> the
>>> > people involved in that effort you can try to organize your own
>>> relationship
>>> > to the Brazil meeting.  But surely that doesn't mean that those who do
>>> > shouldn't be able to.
>>>
>>> Sums it up nicely.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Since "their" meeting was open and "we" were invited to get involved,
>>> why do
>>> > "we" need to have a private meeting from which "they" are excluded?
>>>
>>> good question!
>>>
>>>
>> Bill, are you saying that the "I* orgs" never had one single meeting about
>> this without CS being involved? And you know that for certain?
>> I'd hate to make Jeremy look bad just because he's proposed a CS meeting
>> "intra muros" to devise a strategy. But I'd agree that once we get past
>> the
>> initial clearing and gauging of the field, we too should have joint
>> meetings with any stakeholders "who favor MS processes even if they have
>> different ideas of the desirable end states" to use your words. But
>> frankly, you sound like it's EITHER (coordination with I* orgs) OR (direct
>> "relationship to the Brazil meeting"), with a hint that the former is the
>> most desirable and the latter the least. Is my reading correct? Why can't
>> we do both, especially if there remain issues on which the objectives of
>> CS
>> and those of I* orgs are not fully aligned?
>>
>> And should we understand something of your use of the term "Brazil
>> meeting"
>> as opposed to "summit"? Not that I have any fetishism with summits :-) but
>> since Jeremy also mention that change in terminology, I thought I would
>> ask.
>>
>>
>>
>>> @Mawaki, I never said I was "anti-governmentalist".  Nor did I say the
>>> "technical community" should take over from governments.
>>>
>>>
>> McTim, I might surprise you but of course you never said that. I know. But
>> what you wrote was a direct reaction/response to what Jeremy wrote in the
>> first paragraph of his email. I just contend that there is no way one can
>> fully and accurately understand what you wrote in abstraction, without
>> linking it to what you were responding to. And once one does that, there
>> are direct implications to what you're saying even if you didn't voice
>> them
>> literally. That's also part of the complexity of conversations involving 3
>> or more pragmatic (in the linguistic sense) standpoints. If you didn't
>> question Jeremy's take on the dynamic of what went on in that meeting and
>> just asked him whether CS shouldn't be happy about it, then I'll have to
>> start from the same place, i.e. granting his rendition is accurate, in my
>> response to your question. And if his rendition is accurate, then such
>> state of affairs has implications that you did not need to state
>> explicitly. By asking us shouldn't we be happy with that, you are
>> indicating that you agreed with such state of affairs. In sum, if such (as
>> described by Jeremy) is the state of affairs and if you agree with that
>> (as
>> implied by your question), then my response to you was warranted. Note
>> that
>> the said response is more of a commentary on the said state of affairs
>> than
>> it is about what you personally think ultimately --in case the two are
>> different.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Mawaki
>>
>>
>>
>>> I think we need to realise that governments make the laws and
>>> regulations that the Internet operates under in each country, in
>>> addition to the "Geneva-style" Internet Governance processes.  I'm not
>>> willing to hand them any more decision making ability when I can
>>> instead have CS play a significant role in multi-equal processes.
>>>
>>> I think it is poor strategy and poor form for us to over-react.
>>> Shouldn't we be strongly supportive of grass-roots coalitions?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> McTim
>>> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
>>> route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
>>>
>>>
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