[governance] stakeholder categories (was Re: NSA sabotage of Internet security standards...)

[Norbert Bollow]

Daniel Kalchev <daniel at digsys.bg> wrote:

> On 17.09.13 10:32, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >
> > This relates to the very fundamental question about what is “civil
> > society”. My view is that only people and organizations are
> > qualified to be considered “civil society” who are truly
> > independent of all industry and government interests in regard to
> > the topic areas on which they engage.
> >
> 
> This is a very good question, but unfortunately not an acceptable 
> definition.
> 
> What you suggest is that individuals (by themselves or grouped in 
> organisations) essentially without any qualifications in the field
> (by virtue of not being involved in any entity in that industry --
> because they are not "companies") are to decide how that very
> industry should develop.

Huh???

I'm pretty sure that I've never suggested that “civil society” should
decide single-handedly to make the rules for how “industry should
develop”!

I'm well aware that most people use a much broader definition of “civil
society”, and in fact I've used a broad definition for a long time
myself.

Somewhat recently I've started thinking more deeply about how
multistakeholder processes can be improved, and in that context I've
come to the conclusion that it will be best to use a model of
stakeholder categories that that has three relatively strictly defined
stakeholder categories (“government”, “civil society”, “private
sector”) plus one broad catch-all “multi/other” category for all
people and organizations who don't neatly fit into exactly one of the
first three categories.

In this model, for any particular issue area,

- “government” is reserved for official representatives of governmental
  or intergovernmental institutions, i.e. people who are officially
  authorized to engage in the discourse in the name of such an
  institution;

- “civil society” is reserved for individuals and groups who
  are independent of government and industry interests in the topic
  areas in which they engage;

- “private sector” is reserved for for official representatives of
  businesses and other private sector institutions that are able to
  directly act as change agents in regard to the topics area under
  consideration;

- “multi/other” is the broad category of all people and organizations
  who don't neatly fit into exactly one of the first three categories.

The goal of such a stakeholder categorization is to help recognize (and
hopefully then rectify) situations where the membership of a committee,
or a panel, etc, are badly balanced.

> The "industry" consists of all parties that are active in that 
> particular area, be it individuals or groups of individuals.
> 
> Let's take as example the ISP industry. This is certainly an activity 
> that has been practiced by both individuals and groups of individuals 
> (companies). If you exclude those who are in the trade from the
> "civil society", what is left is those who have never been involved
> in the ISP industry and therefore have no clue what the challenges
> there are. Yet, those people are tasked to shape it?
> 
> For me, "civil society" has always been anything that is not 
> "government".

So in your understanding, businesses are part of "civil society" as
long as they're not state owned???

> Now, "government" is a very wide term and therefore, a 
> member of the civil society who then becomes "a governor" of any kind
> is automatically excluded from the "civil society".
> 
> Now, any "civil society" that participates in "Internet Governance" 
> should either cease to be "civil society" or cease to participate in 
> "Internet Governance".
> 
> Pretty complex, eh? :-)

The model which I'm proposing avoids this kind nonwellfoundedness
paradox.

More importantly, the model that I'm proposing avoids defining “civil
society” so broadly that the experiences and concerns which are
shared among the members of “civil society” are simply shared because
we are all humans living on the same planet.

The broad definitions of “civil society” do not result in “civil
society” being a category with useful meaning. If multistakeholder
processes are based on badly defined stakeholder categories, then I'm
sure that at least in the long run, no governance structure that relies
on such processes can be viable.

Greetings,
Norbert

-- 
Recommendations for effective and constructive participation in IGC:
1. Respond to the content of assertions and arguments, not to the person
2. Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept

-------------- 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