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

[Jean-Louis FULLSACK]

Norbert Bollow wrote :

Message du 18/09/13 17:04
> De : "Norbert Bollow" 
> A : governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Copie à : 
> Objet : Re: [governance] stakeholder categories (was Re: NSA sabotage of Internet security standards...)
> 
> Peter H. Hellmonds wrote:
> 
> > Norbert,
> > 
> > How would you determine who has "a high degree of independence from
> > government and from commercial interests related to the topics on
> > which they engage"?
> 
> I would propose that people and organizations who purport to participate
> as civil society should be asked to publish some statement about what
> they do to ensure a high degree of independence.
> 
> If such a statement turns out to be significantly deceptive, that should
> be punishable as fraud. For example astroturf should be persecuted as a
> kind of such fraud.
> 
> > Do you think that everyone of those who work for,
> > or even speak for, a specific government or business is by virtue of
> > that association not independent?
> 
> Yes, in regard to topics which concern the policies or actions of that
> government, or which are directly related to specific business
> interests of that company.
> 
> Being in the employment of an organization is the most obvious form of
> clearly not being independent from it.
> 
> > And what value should lie in that independence?
> 
> Making it easier to be not be unduly influenced in one's thinking by
> the particular interests of any of those entities which have strong
> particular interests related to the topic under discussion. 
> 
> > I presume that you
> > have lost trust in government agencies who spy on us just as much as
> > I do. And that you mistrust companies who have followed legal orders
> > or who have willingly cooperated or collaborated with those spy
> > agencies. That you have lost trust in the system of checks and
> > balances where those checks have clearly failed. I am fully with you
> > on that.
> 
> I have also to a significant degree lost trust in my own ability to
> objectively think about matters of the public interest unless I take
> precautionary actions to prevent myself from being unduly influenced 
> by phenomena like not risking to lose one's job, hope of winning someone
> as a customer, the very human need to be respected and accepted by the
> people who are one's peer group, etc.
> 
> All the serious literature on this kind of phenomena (as far as I
> have read it) leads me to believe that this susceptibility (to forms of
> social corruption which are not illegal but nevertheless corrupting) is
> not just my personal problem, but in fact part of human nature.
> 
> Consequently there is value in maintaining a kind of independence that
> is designed to minimize this kind of temptations.
> 
> > But throwing all government or business people into the same
> > category of "untrustworthy because not independent" does not do
> > justice to the majority of people working in these organizations. 
> 
> That is not what I'm saying. I'm proposing a model of stakeholder
> categorization in which someone who is a engaging as a representative
> of any one of the stakeholder categories “government”, “civil
> society”, “private sector” is as a logical consequence of the
> definitions not at the same time and for the same issue engaging as a
> member of any other of these three stakeholder categories.
> 
> A logical consequence of this is the need for a new category
> “multi/other”.
> 
> I think that the introduction of such a “multi/other” category (which
> by definition does not have a specific “respective role” in Internet
> governance, but which is needed to ensure that everyone who does not
> neatly fit into one of the categories with specific “respective roles”
> can still fully participate in the discourse) violates neither the
> spirit nor the letter of the Tunis Agenda. Quite on the contrary, I
> this a logical consequence of taking the remark seriously about
> governments, civil society and private sector having “respective roles”
> in Internet governance without at the same time excluding from the
> discourse everyone who does not fit into such a “three categories of
> roles” model. 
> 
> > To answer your question: there is value in individuals, regardless of
> > affiliation, to maintain an independence of thought and to work
> > together in achieving common public policy goals.
> 
> Of course.
> 
> The whole point of multistakeholderism is to recognize and value what
> people and organizations of the different stakeholder categories can
> contribute to the discussions on the basis of their experiences,
> knowledge, and ability to take action.
> 
> In particular I respect and value what private sector representatives
> bring to the table in terms of hand-on experience in creating and
> delivering relevant products and services, and in terms of their
> resulting ability to be change agents for positive changes.
> 
> Conversely, I would like to request that the choice which I and others
> have made should also be respected, that we have chosen to engage in a
> way that is by design independent of commercial and government
> interests in the areas of our engagement.
> 
> > Finally, I feel like you are trying to preach from a high tower when
> > you claim that "as every honest person will admit", the "trappings of
> > political power and of commercial interest" can "easily lead people
> > astray in their thinking."
> > 
> > Do you mean by this that everyone who works in government or business
> > is suspicious of leaving his civil conscience, his ethics and morals,
> > behind by virtue of drawing a paycheck from a particular organization?
> > 
> > Maybe you should throw that "holier-than-though" attitude that I
> > sense behind that claim
> 
> Wanting to assert and preserve the specific particularity of “civil
> society” (in the sense in which I understand the term), and thereby
> the particular value that civil society can bring to the table in
> multistakeholder processes, has nothing to do with "holier-than-though".
> 
> Similarly it has nothing to do with "holier-than-though" when private
> sector representatives point out that it is the private sector who
> creates and delivers relevant products and services.
> 
> And it also has nothing to do with "holier-than-though" when people who
> register to international conferences as government representatives
> have to present proof of being part of the official delegation. For
> example just being a government employee is not sufficient.
> 
> > and start engaging with those people and see who they really are and
> > how they think
> 
> I'm doing that.
> 
> For example, I'm taking note that right now, a private sector
> representative who is not just anyone but a person who has served on
> the MAG as a private sector representative, is telling me that I should
> maybe “throw” what I see as the very core of my choice to be a civil
> society person, and that moreover essentially everyone who can claim
> to have “ethics and morals” should be accepted as a civil society
> person even if at the same time they're representing government or
> private sector interests _in_the_topic_area_under_discussion_.
> 
> If that view were to be accepted, in the context which we're discussing
> here (namely, multistakeholder processes in a Tunis Agenda context), it
> would effectively destroy civil society as a distinct stakeholder
> category.
> 
> That demand to dilute the notion of “civil society” to the point of
> that notion no longer really meaning anything in particular is not just
> disrespectful, it is an outright attack on the ability of civil society
> (in the sense of what the term meant during the WSIS process, and in
> the only slightly evolved sense in which I use the word) to effectively
> participate.
> 
> After all, if we allow the notion “civil society” to be diluted to a
> point where everyone can claim to be “civil society” on every issue,
> it is clear that whatever the framers of the Tunis Agenda saw as the
> specific “respective role” of civil society will clearly have been lost.
> (Here I use the word “whatever” to indicate that this argument is
> independent of whether we agree on what the role of civil society is or
> what it should be.)
> 
> > before making such broad generalizations.
> 
> I am not making a broad generalization here.
> 
> I have many years of experience of engagement as a civil society
> representative, and the vast majority of private sector people with
> whom I've interacted have, in all their interactions with me, shown a
> high level of professional courtesy and professional integrity. That
> of course includes acceptance and respect for who I choose to be.
> 
> What is going on here on the IGC mailing list where some people (who
> primarily identify as being private sector representatives or as
> members of the technical community, but who don't primarily see
> themselves as being “civil society”) are trying to tell civil society
> people to change their understanding of what is “civil society”, that
> is in my experience definitively the exception rather than the norm.
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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