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

Wed Mar 5 23:07:09 EST 2014

Yes, I agree… (only to add Essentially a winner take all political (or financially self-interested) process.

M

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:srs at savitr.info] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 7:35 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Cc: Andrew Puddephatt; Jeremy Malcolm; parminder
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Three NETmundial submissions launched for endorsement at bestbits.net

Mike, I have seen multistakeholder processes get real but only where there are operational goals involved .. In such cases active cooperation takes place regardless of whether the person you cooperate with works for a competitor or not.  

In the processes where it does break down it does so because of more than one stakeholder being focused on power and control rather than on achieving results. Essentially a winner take all political process.

--srs (iPad)

On 06-Mar-2014, at 8:27, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

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 ostyle='color:black'>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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