CS consensual statement on MSism WAS Re: [governance] Vint Verf tells us the conclusion of the complex IANA transition process

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 29/07/2014 7:31 am, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> I'm not so sure that “common understanding” is really so much more
> modest than “definition”. It is common for multiple definitions to
> co-exist, but multiple “common understandings”?
>
> One way to work towards clarity of communication when there are
> multiple understandings is to add qualifiers. For example, useful
> labels may be: “equal-footing multistakeholderism”, “open-participation
> multistakeholderism”, “Geneva-style multistakeholdersm”, “democratic
> multistakeholderism”, etc.
>
> Personally, I have a definition for “democratic multistakeholderism” at 
> http://sustainability.oriented.systems/democratic-multistakeholderism/
> and I would greatly appreciate if others would also somehow label and
> define their preferred understanding or model of multistakeholderism.

Cross-posting to Best Bits for reasons that will become apparent, though
I'm not posting with my Best Bits steering committee hat.

Settling on a normative definition of multi-stakeholderism (or a
"quality seal" as I called it at the Bali IGF meeting) is something I've
been wanting to do for a long while, and something I thought Best Bits
could (a) do, and (b) use as a criterion for ongoing participation.  The
last meeting of the steering committee ended without an agreement on (b)
and neither was there a widespread desire to devote the next Best Bits
meeting in Istanbul to doing (a).

However it was accepted that if a self-organised fluid working group
were to do (a) between now and the meeting, then the result could be
presented (but not extensively debated) at the Best Bits meeting, and it
seems to me that that could lead into a later resolution of the larger
group about whether to go with (b), since we would at least have a
firmer idea of what the criterion for participation would be.

This fortuitously has coincided with this thread on the governance list,
as well as similar thoughts circulating on the IGF multistakeholder best
practices list (though discussion there has been slapped down).  Without
attempting to hijack those discussions, would it help to have a few
people work more intensively on this privately, and then bring it back
to the larger groups to gauge whether it could reach consensus either
amongst the IGC or Best Bits, or subset thereof?

I plan to also install LiquidFeedback (http://liquidfeedback.org/) as a
tool to help reach a rational consensus, given that this is a
controversial topic that usually erupts into flame wars when conducted
on lists.  Thanks to Carolina for the pointer to that tool.  I agree
with Ian and others that using the NETmundial wording on Internet
governance principles makes a better starting point than starting from
scratch.  If anyone thinks this is a good plan, let me know and I'll
invite you onto the working group and give you a login to LiquidFeedback.

On a more substantive point relating to this thread, since
post-NETmundial we have progressed beyond the idea of fixed roles for
stakeholder groups, it seems to me that the "equal footing" argument,
besides being contentious, is basically moot and doesn't have to appear
in the definition.  We can simply acknowledge that the roles will vary
on an issue by issue basis, and implicitly this means that no
stakeholder group automatically has a role superior to the others (eg. I
suppose nobody, presumably not even the statists in our ranks, would
suggest that governments take over the IETF).

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm at eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::


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