[governance] RE: Alternatives?
michael gurstein
gurstein at gmail.com
Thu Mar 6 10:13:56 EST 2014
For those out there who might not be catching Andrew’s drift behind the buzz word barrage and portensious evoking of the Cold War (us guys with white hats and those guys with black hats) let me de-construct his various communications…
AP: And I fail to see how a hierarchical state based system of decision making – which is the alternative being proposed – answers your questions or as I prefer to think of it - offers me any sees of how my interests as a user will be taken care off. That to me is the important question
MG: “a hierarchical state based system of decision making” popularly known to most of the world as “democracy”
MG: “my interests as a user will be taken care off” otherwise intelligible as “my interests as a privileged white Developed Country male living under the benign and enabling gaze of the GCHQ”
AP: The kind of governments wanting to assert “state sovereignty” over the internet, to use Russia’s phrase, have no interest in my concerns whereas most civil society groups that I have see active in this space do. So I’d like to see them at the table
MG: “governments wanting to assert “state sovereignty” over the internet” i.e. everybody who doesn’t buy into my cuckoo cloud land ideal state of totally benign, selfless and public spirited “multi-stakeholders”—such as Internet tax dodgers Amazon and Google, technical community stakeholders like the NSA, various Google greenwashing NGO’s such as…,etc.etc.
AP: There¹s clearly two views emerging in civil society on IG - a one based on an established hierarchical system among states and the other - as said below - an innovative bottom, transparent, accountable, open multistakeholder policy development process where governments are just one (vey important) stakeholder, but do not have a veto rights
MG: “established hierarchical system among states” namely the UN and associated multilateral bodies where the writ of King Silicon Valley and the Internet Freedom crusaders has only partial sway i.e. the place where even the little people have a chance to be heard
MG: “innovative” – innovation for who and whose benefit http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/silicon-valleys-to-community-informatics-neighbourhoods/
MG: “bottom (up)” – the point of my questions – I don’t see any bottom up processes—a lot of networking of the already networked http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/847.htm and http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/if-multistakeholderism-had-prevailed-in-the-late-19thearly-20th-century-would-women-have-the-vote-would-we-still-have-slavery/
MG: “transparent” and ” accountable” hmmm http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/multistakeholderism-vs-democracy-my-adventures-in-stakeholderland/
MG: “open” – open for who and in whose benefit http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/%E2%80%9Copen%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Cnecessary%E2%80%9D-but-not-%E2%80%9Csufficient%E2%80%9D/
And in case anyone was wondering http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/in-defense-of-multistakeholder-processes/
M
M
From: Andrew Puddephatt [mailto:Andrew at gp-digital.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 6:13 AM
To: michael gurstein; '"Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"'; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; 'parminder'; 'Jeremy Malcolm'
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: Alternatives?
And I fail to see how a hierarchical state based system of decision making – which is the alternative being proposed – answers your questions or as I prefer to think of it - offers me any sees of how my interests as a user will be taken care off. That to me is the important question
The kind of governments wanting to assert “state sovereignty” over the internet, to use Russia’s phrase, have no interest in my concerns whereas most civil society groups that I have see active in this space do. So I’d like to see them at the table
From: michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 6 March 2014 14:00
To: andrew Puddephatt <andrew at gp-digital.org>, "'\"Kleinwächter", "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, "parminder at itforchange.net" <parminder at itforchange.net>, Jeremy Malcolm <Jeremy at Malcolm.id.au>
Cc: "<bestbits at lists. net <mailto:bestbits at lists.%20net> >" <bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
Subject: RE: Alternatives?
Andrew,
I fail to see how Wolfgang's discussion of MSism as an ideal type (using the narrowly technical issues addressed by the IETF as his example) addresses any of the reality based questions that I posed.
Perhaps you (or Wolfgang or others) could either indicate how Wolfgang's comments do address my questions or respond to them yourself.
As a reminder I'm copying them in below...
Reading your contribution I’m left with more questions than answers I’m afraid..
1. What are the details for the formation/determination of “stakeholders”—do they pursue their interests/stakes or do they pursue the public good
a. How are divergent interests/conflicts within stakeholder groups handled
b. Is this transparent
c. What are the accountability mechanisms here
d. Who/how is “legitimacy” accorded/denied—by what authority
e. Who gives legitimacy to the legitimizers
2. Decision making processes—i.e. how are divergent interests/conflicts between stakeholders handled
a. who gets to deny consensus and how can we be at all certain that the result is in the public interest—
b. can/should those with specific private interests be in a position to deny consensus/force consensus on their terms (Parminder’s point about the private sector being equal with governments in making decisions)
c. Is there an artificial drive to a forced consensus
d. Can private interests drive decisions and what is to prevent this
e. Is there such a thing as “conflict of interest”—who is responsible for this—how is it policed, sanctions
3. How to ensure true diversity of opinion including among those who challenge the way in which the issues are framed—diversity of “identity” is relatively easy, normative diversity is rather more difficult to achieve and handle
4. How is the very real danger of capture guarded against
5. What would be the process of deepening participation/consultation
Without dealing with the above and associated reality based questions you and the other MSist advocates are expecting folks to buy a pig in a poke… alright perhaps for some – the powerful and the networked but dangerous indeed for everyone else.
M
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Puddephatt [mailto:Andrew at gp-digital.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 5:47 AM
To: "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; parminder; michael gurstein; Jeremy Malcolm
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: Alternatives?
I think Wolfgang expresses my view of the issues very well and I don¹t think I can add to it. There¹s clearly two views emerging in civil society on IG - a one based on an established hierarchical system among states and the other - as said below - an innovative bottom, transparent, accountable, open multistakeholder policy development process where governments are just one (vey important) stakeholder, but do not have a veto rights
Let¹s now see whose case is more persuasive
On 06/03/2014 11:31, ""Kleinwächter, Wolfgang""
< <mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> wrote:
>
>Andrew:
>
>Where I think we disagree is that I think you believe governments
>should in the end, make the final decisions about the internet as they
>are the sole source of legitimacy (please correct me if I misunderstand you).
>
>
>Parminder
>You do understand correctly. I believe that for global public policies
>the final public policy decision has to be taken by governments. This
>is so for policies in all area, whether climate change, health, trade,
>IP, or any other. That is an imperfect system, but that is the best we got...
>We should continually improve it, as various submissions from my
>organisation has sought, and well, IGF is a great reform measure, to
>help, but not do, policy making.
>
>
>Wolfgang:
>
>The reality is - and will remain for a long future - that the 190+
>governments of the UN member states will be unable to agree and to
>reach consensus. WCIT was in so far a watershed because it demonstrated
>that there is no political will to agree on an the continuation of an
>already existing (more technical) treaty with some amendements. The
>only thing you will get out - if you follow Parminders advice - is "an
>agreement to disagree" (as enhanced cooperation).
>
>With other words: If you continue with this established hierarchcial
>system with intergovernmental treaties at the top, you will get nothing.
>You will end up in endless political and ideological battles The most
>restrictive government will determine where the "red line is". This
>will be a blockade for the next 20 years of Internet development with
>no new technical and economic innovations, growing restrictions for
>individual rights and freedoms, slowing down social and economic
>development - in particular in developing countries - reducing job
>opportunies and something more.
>
>The only way to bypass this is - as it has proved the last 20 years -
>the innovative bottom, transparent, accountable, open multistakeholder
>policy development process where governments are just one (vey
>important) stakeholder, but do not have a veto right and have to
>communicate, coordinate and collaborate on an equal footing among
>themsleves and with other stakeholders (which have to demonstrate their
>legitimacy) on an issue by issue basis towards rough consensus. And you
>need more non-governmental stakeholders from underprivilegd regions -
>in particular developing countries - to balance (governmental and
>non-governmental) monopolies, domination and capture.
>
>Study the IETF what rough consensus means. As long as the rough
>consensus is based on an open standard, it can be always enhanced and
>amended if new developments, (politcal) constellations and (social and
>economic) oppotunties arrive. So it is never the last word. But it
>helps to move (or stumble) forward to the benefit of the vast majority
>which is represented by the (multistakeholder) rough consensus.
>
>The big chance of NetMundial is that there could be a multistakeholder
>rough consensus around very high level, legally non binding general
>principles (which would allow also some governments to make
>reservations in line with the mechanisms which has been build into the
>Human Rights Declarations with regad to Article 19 and Article 29) and
>to agree on a multistakeholder road map which singles out issues of
>concern and gives a direction how to approach them (this could include
>also timelines and the launch of multistakeholder mechanisms like
>clearing houses, taks forces, observatories etc.).
>
>But the very concrete public policy arrangements - from Privacy to
>Security to Intellectual Property - will be made probably via
>bi-lateral or regional arrangements negotiated in a multistakeholder environment.
>And the outcome of this "Internet Governance Bilateralism" or "Internet
>Governance Regionalism" will produce another set of conflicts because a
>bilateral Chinese - Russian agreement on Internet Privacy would
>probably look rather different from the EU Directive (with 28 member
>states) and the EU Directive is also rather differerent from the US privacy approach.
>And also Brazil, South Africa, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia (in particular
>the governments) will keep their own positions.
>
>However, as long as you put this (very often historical and cultural
>determined) conflicts into a broader set of principles you avoid an
>escalation among the conflicting positions because at the end of the
>day all the different groups feel polically (and morally) bound by
>those set of principles, which will have the support not only by
>governments of the UN member states but also by all the other non-governmental stakeholders.
>This is a unique chance. It will not settle all problems and will not
>save the world. But it is a step forward at the right moment and in the
>right direction. The adoption of the Human Rights Declaration did not
>stop violations of human rights. But it offered a reference point which
>helped to reduce such violations.
>
>If we neglect or ignore this, the alternative will be that we are
>moving backwards into the 19th Century or even worse, into the Middle Ages.
>
>
>
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