[governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

Wed Mar 5 23:02:30 EST 2014

Ah. the "if I ruled the world" challenge. yes, flattering but ultimately
inconsequential. I don't (thank god) rule the world. So my off the cuff
solutions aren't worth all that much.

I did a major project in sub-Saharan Africa last year with Mwaki among
others addressing more or less this very question. and the answer was. it's
complicated.

It involved strengthening broad structures of governance, putting technology
infrastructures into (the right) place(s), training, developing appropriate
mechanisms for consultation/decision making. And yes the answer was
multi-stakeholder . but. not multistakeholderist. multi-stakeholder within a
context which could accommodate and contain and make multi-stakeholder
consultation and participation meaningful and useful for all concerned
including to strengthen democratic governance and particularly figuring out
how to get governmental structures to adapt and respond. To some degree this
would be done in parallel to existing democratic processes but interwoven
with them to use the democracy to reinforce the consultations and the
consultations to deepen and reinforce the democracy.

Sorry if this is tedious and not glib enough for you but given world enough
and time my guess is that this kind of thing could work as well in
Ouagadougou as in downtown Tehran. not sure about Hackney/Georgetown but it
seems to work well enough in Teeside and if we can get these things to work
in Ouga and Tehran and Teeside - well "first we take Manhattan and then we
take Berlin.. *

(And BTW it's not me who is agitating to jettison 300 or so years of
democracy in favour of some pig in a poke hatched in some US think tank and
being foisted on the world by a self-interested cabal of the US State
Department, Google,  various other OECD private corps, and certain selected
"civil society" organizations including your own it would appear**

*Leonard Cohen..
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/First-We-Take-Manhattan-lyrics-Leonar
d-Cohen/926CCB64249F308848256AF00028CB85

**TOWARD A SINGLE GLOBAL DIGITAL ECONOMY
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/upload/Toward_a_Si
ngle_Global_Digital_Economy_Aspen_IDEA_Project_0.pdf

M

From: Andrew Puddephatt [mailto:Andrew at gp-digital.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 7:08 PM
To: michael gurstein; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; 'Jeremy Malcolm';
'parminder'
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions
launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

I'm sorry Mike - you are not answering the question.  If you mean by
multi-lateralism, negotiations about a global environment conducted by
states I want to know - not why you think multi-stakeholderism is crap -
which you have discussed with all of us at great and increasingly tedious
length - but what js your democratic alternative that allows my interests -
or any other citizens to be represented in global negotiations?

Those you disagree with are looking for ways to ensure a broader range of
voices - including states of course as the most powerful actors- in the
governance debate.

Put your option up for discussion and let's see how democratic that is to
the resident of downtown Tehran (or even Hackney where I live)

From: michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 6 March 2014 02:57
To: andrew Puddephatt <andrew at gp-digital.org>,
"governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Jeremy
Malcolm <Jeremy at Malcolm.id.au>, "parminder at itforchange.net"
<parminder at itforchange.net>
Cc: "<bestbits at lists. net <mailto:bestbits at lists.%20net> >"
<bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions
launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

Andrew (and Suresh.

Those are quite legitimate points/questions and very much worthy of serious
discussion and debate. 

However, evoking (over and over and over.) the undefined, undescribed,
undetailed multistakeholderist mantra doesn't get us any closer. 

The continuous shapeshifting by the proponents of the MS meme whenever they
are challenged to get real --well this isn't quite "MSism", it isn't true
MSism, it will be better next time MSism, doesn't do anyone a service
(except the "wizards" behind the curtains). 

>From my own experience, whenever MSism "gets real" it falls apart-either it
doesn't have any operational processes or related significant structures of
accountability so it can't handle even the most insignificant of challenges
without some form of full on offensive/defensive onslaught or it simply
ignores the issue and moves on. Nor can it handle even the most
inconsequential of divergences/diversities of opinion-the drive towards
convergence/consensus (and the associated processes of marginalization and
exclusion) are terrifying to me if there were any real chance of scaling.
In the last century we had a lot of experience (and several names) for
political systems that couldn't deal with challenge, divergence, conflict
and insisted on a managed consensus and forced choices "or else. 

Democracy and multi-lateralism both have many many flaws but they have both
taken us a considerable distance down roads that allow us to be where we are
now and thinking about significant and desirable ways forward into much more
complex decision environments. Moreover we now have (the possibility of
using) new tools to support the extending of democratic capabilities, the
broader inclusion of diversities, the extension of opportunities for
effective participation to previously marginalized populations.

I see absolutely no reason for civil society to be uncritically supporting
MSism as is obviously currently the case. To my mind this goes against
everything that CS has traditionally stood for-the broadening and deepening
of accountability in support of the public good, the strengthening of
democracy including through its extension to the poor and marginalized, the
developing of public processes and methods to control the unaccountable use
of private power in opposition to the public interest. 

MSism is in its essence a form of privatization of power-shifting of power
from the hands of people (however flawed that might be) to the hands of
those who for the most part are unaccountable and non-transparent in their
actions, their internal operations and in their structures.

I would love to see some demonstration that I am wrong or that I've missed
something but another round of "trust them/us" is not going to cut it.

Mike

From: Andrew Puddephatt [mailto:Andrew at gp-digital.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 6:14 PM
To: michael gurstein; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; 'Jeremy Malcolm';
'parminder'
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions
launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

Michael

Those of us less clever than you are trying to figure out how to make
governance of a global system more equitable and transparent and
accountable.  Clearly we failed.

Can you explain to me how an international inter state process is
democratic, assuming that is what you believe (and if not what is your
democratic alternative to the submissions on BB?).  How are my interests
represented by inter state discussions, or those of Chinese or Russian
citizens, or women in Saudi Arabia or Canadian academics? 

From: michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
Reply-To: michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 5 March 2014 23:57
To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Jeremy
Malcolm <Jeremy at Malcolm.id.au>, "parminder at itforchange.net"
<parminder at itforchange.net>
Cc: "<bestbits at lists. net <mailto:bestbits at lists.%20net> >"
<bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions
launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

I see, so in your world democracy (however flawed), is to be replaced by
Multistakeholderism where there is no (evident) transparency (T) or
accountability (A) for the inputs into the stakeholder processes, no
(evident) T or A for the outputs of the stakeholder processes  and the
stakeholders themselves are subject to no effective T or A since they are
some sort of (interglalactic?) shapeshifters errr. those with "role
flexibilities".

Have I missed something here?

This may work for a Wizard of Oz space like 1Net where even as the curtain
gets repeatedly bunched up revealing the ("non-existent"-we have it on the
highest possible authority-trust us) wizard pulling the strings and T & A
appears to consist of repeated choruses of "trust them it will get better"
by a fawning self-selected "Steering Committee", but surely in our world we
might expect something with a slightly higher reality component.

M

From:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Malcolm
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 4:21 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; parminder
Cc: &lt,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net <mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt>
&gt,
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions
launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

On 5 Mar 2014, at 7:49 pm, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

So, request a clear response - do you mean parity in decision making about
public policies between gov and non gov actors.... And this is not a petty
point... Half of the time of the WGEC got taken on this kind of discussion.
This is the single most important point today, if we can clarify nd possibly
agree on this point - rest is not too difficult... Lets accept what is the
key point, and not skirt it...

Different people who contributed to the submission, even if they all endorse
the final result, will probably give you different answers to that question.
I'm not sure that anyone is interested in what my personal answer is because
I'm just an individual, but I would say no I do not accept as a general
proposition that parity in decision making is appropriate, which is why I
personally objected to that language being used.

For some issues, it will be appropriate that the stakeholders act as equals
in the decision making process (to the extent that there is a "decision" at
all).  In other areas, it won't be appropriate and may be more appropriate
that although all stakeholders are involved, one of them will legitimately
take a bigger role than the others.  For example governments may take a
leading role in transnational human rights disputes, the technical community
may do so in developing spam filtering standards, civil society may do so in
developing human rights based principles for judging government surveillance
practices, and even the private sector may do so, say in setting prices for
the trading of IPv4 addresses.

This also implies that the appropriate mechanism of governance may differ in
each case, eg. laws, standards, markets.  The above all follows naturally if
you accept that there are no fixed stakeholder roles, because the
appropriate roles will differ depending on the circumstances.

BTW, the German government has the following to say in its submission to
NetMundial

...

Do you for instance agree to the above formulation, or NOT...

Nope, don't agree with the German government's formulation because it
maintains the fallacy of fixed stakeholder roles.

--

Jeremy Malcolm PhD LLB (Hons) B Com

Internet lawyer, ICT policy advocate, geek

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