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

[parminder]

We need to make a distinction between public - in whose name the 
conception of 'public interest' is created, and who, in a democratic 
system, influence political outcomes through participation in the 
'public sphere' - from what may be called as 'civil society'. I see a 
lot of confusion here between these two important but very different 
terms and concepts of a democratic ecology. Everyone is 'public' and 
have the corresponding rights, including various rights of 
participation, but not everyone can be called as 'civil society'.

Civil society has generally referred to relatively organised groups 
oriented to some kind of public action - which is informed by public 
interest and not private interest. Before going forward, one must 
mention that a lot of individuals, with the dint of their demonstrated 
work and networks of collective action, do become important parts of 
civil society. The digitally networked world adds a (welcome) complexity 
that many more individuals can be members of civil society , in this 
manner, than waspossible earlier . This new dimension should be fully 
taken into account, with groups like IGC being important sites where 
such civil society identity is built and expressed.

However, the new context does not completely remove the traditional 
conceptual boundaries of what is and what is not civil society. Norbert 
explained at length his conception of these boundaries, and I agree with 
him.

Every term or concept has some boundaries of its application, and it 
would be meaningless without them. The impact of killing the meaning of 
a term is of damaging the interests of those who employ it for specific 
purposes. If we want to argue ad absurdum, anything can be reduced to 
everything-ness which is also nothing ness.... Each of us is also  a 
productive agent is some way or the other, and 'sells' some service or 
product, yosou well, everyone is business, everyone has some technical 
(and academic) skills, and so..... in countries like India, where 
governance system goes deep to include every adult citizen in many 
governance activities, then everyone is also government......

BTW, what does this kind of vaporisation of stakeholder categories do to 
multistakeholderism - As aptly questioned by Ian... We are then all just 
'public', and governance is based on developing contextual conceptions 
of public interest, which is done by normal democratic methods..... 
Multistakeholderists cannot have their cake and eat it too...... Either 
there are stakeholder categories, with some definitions, or there are 
not.....

Two other conceptions have been offered for delineating civil society. 
One is self definition. Well, fine, but why does this not apply say also 
to technical community..... Why is it fine that someone who self defines 
himself as technical and academic community, and in fact is demonstrably 
an academic,  may not be considered as 'tech and academic community' by 
whoever is the
gatekeeper of that particular community, What is interesting that most 
people now on the side of keeping civil society as fully open and 
diffuse category were rather sympathetic to the actions of the 
gatekeepers of tech and academic community.... This question needs to be 
responded to.

Or, and this is my political question, why is it is just the civil 
society that is offered such pious advices which would simply results in 
it loosing its effectiveness... Think of some reps of big telecom 
industry, including as Karl says, multiple legal replicas of them, being 
able to fully participate in a civil society effort at building 
consensus over some net neutrality principles. What Norbert has 
expounded are simple conflict of interest principles that is basic to 
organising public life and public systems in all democracies.

And the further political context of this discussion is, that although 
definitionally   any non-gov, non-business grouping would be civil 
society,  the term has a preponderant usage for groups representing the 
interests of those who are normally marginalised and 
under-represented.... Which is why in WSIS, for instance, you had civil 
society caucuses representing the interests of women, ethnic minorities, 
disabled people etc and none for the corresponding empowered categories. 
Creating definitional weaknesses that contribute to organisational 
ineffectivness of civil society compromise the interests of these weaker 
sections. We must accept that business groups are (mostly) organised 
around interests of large shareholders, and thus a corresponding 
worldview and policy positions. All civil society groups understand 
that, without meaning any personal disrespect to any one. (Neither does 
it mean that every time business has a view that hurts the interests of 
the marginalised. Of course not.) But we are intent on being blind to 
such simple universally accepted facts of political life we are 
compromising the interests of marginalised people. And we are also 
constructing civil society groupings that are sorely out of sync with 
civil society groupings in practically all other global governance/ 
policy spaces....

Lastly, some participants here have mentioned that having/ representing  
'civil society values/ interests' is what is relevant to being civil 
society. Can they clarify what  they mean by these terms. Is it the 
interests of those who are otherwise easily marginalised from policy/ 
governance spaces, and are generally the ones suffering social, economic 
and other kinds of injustices..... Or is it something else. Unless we 
know what 'civil society values/ interests' mean we can identify the 
civil society persons that espouse these values/ interests.

parminder


On Thursday 19 September 2013 04:10 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> JFC Morfin <jefsey at jefsey.com> wrote:
>> At 18:43 18/09/2013, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>>> Peter H. Hellmonds <peter.hellmonds at hellmonds.eu> wrote:
>>>> Perhaps we need to make a phone call to clarify
>>>> things. I'll send you my number in a private mail. We can then
>>>> discuss offline and inform the list of the outcome.
>>> Update: Peter and I have talked and have amicably resolved the
>>> issue between us.
>> I am glad of that. However, the matter raised key general issues that
>> have to be discussed outside of friendly phone talk. I concatenate
>> them.
> Of course I just intended to say what has been amicably resolved is
> the interpersonal aspect of misunderstanding each other to some degree,
> and resulting interpersonal tensions.
>
> Substantively, Peter and I still agree to some extent and disagree to
> some extent and we don't have a problem with that.
>
> One point on which I had not communicated clearly enough in my postings
> is that in my mind OF COURSE EVERYONE IS A MEMBER OF CIVIL SOCIETY in
> the sense of everyone being equally part of the general “public
> interest” constituency that many civil society representatives claim to
> represent. (There are also narrower constituencies, such as e.g.
> “persons with visual disabilities” whose representatives should of
> course likewise be recognized as “civil society representatives”.)
>
> My remarks about the importance of working on maintaining reasonably
> strong independence from government and private sector particular
> interests (related to the topic area under discussion) refer not to who
> is part of “civil society” as a constituency, but to participation
> in multistakeholder processes as “civil society representatives”.
>
> If we want credible civil society representation, we need to work on
> our credibility.
>
> I'm not suggesting to introduce gatekeepers of any kind who would
> execute some kind of formal process of verification.
>
> But I think that it would be of significant value to have much more
> transparency on funding etc. We could even develop a formal standard
> with requirements on what kinds of disclosures individuals and
> organizations who want to engage as formal “civil society
> representatives” should make at a minimum.
>
> As I wrote, such a narrowing of who participates in multistakeholder
> processes under the “civil society” banner must be balanced by at the
> same time introducing a way for people to participate without making a
> claim of specifically being a representative that fits into the any
> particular of three primary categories of stakeholder representatives.
> Hence the new “multi/other” category in my proposal.
>
> By the way, besides the four categories of stakeholder representatives
> “GOV” (government and intergovernmental organization representatives),
> “CS” (civil society representatives), “BIZ” (business/private sector
> representatives), “M/O” (multi/other stakeholder representatives),
> there should probably be an additional registration option “TGO” for
> representatives of technical governance organizations such as the
> specialized Internet governance institutions, technical standardization
> committees, etc. I don't think that it makes sense to classify TGOs
> as a stakeholder category, but the TGOs exist in order to make
> multistakeholder governance work in a way that is generally acceptable,
> from perspectives which include the perspectives of all the primary
> categories of stakeholder group representatives, and hence it is
> obviously important to explicitly include TGO representatives in the
> discussions.
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
>

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