[governance] Democracy and IG (was Re: Text of Parminder's input)

[Norbert Bollow]

On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 17:38:50 +0000
Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> > IMO it is certainly possible to create governance mechanisms that
> > are suitable for Internet governance and other global concerns, and
> > which are at the same time democratic and conductive to achieving
> > good results.
> 
> ​I guess all the devil here is in that "achieving good results." What
> is good for one, is that good for the other?​

What I mean with "good results" is first of all results that uphold and
implement everyone's humane rights, and where secondly the results are
in accordance with majority intentions in democratic decision-making.

This presupposes democratic decision-making processes that are much
better informed about the effects of Internet related decision proposals
than governments, parliaments and judges currently are.

What I mean with "good results" does not imply that the results would
necessarily be seen as good from the perspective of any particular
person's perceived self-interest, although at least their human rights
will be respected and protected -- and as this includes not only
civil and political rights such as privacy and freedom of communication
and freedom of expression, but also social and economic rights, this
is already quite a lot. 

> ​I guess I shall be looking for a response to that question the
> wisdom task force proposal.​

The answer which I give above is indeed implicit in the design of my
"International Wisdom Task Force" proposal. 

> > I have a concrete proposal at
> > ​​
> > http://wisdomtaskforce.org/
> 
> 
> ​While I haven't read all of it (yet... hopefully), this seems to
> point to the right direction overall if the purpose is to achieve the
> goal of effective decision-making mechanism based on democratic
> principles, which will be acceptable to all, both individual
> participants and stakeholders.
> 
> I guess your response is nudging me to clarify and complement the
> question I previously put to one side of the argument by formulating
> a two-sided request. It would be most useful if:
> 
> 1. On the one hand, the party that doesn't want any reference to
> democracy when it comes to IG can point to or develop a systematic
> critical assessment of democracy (more specifically, of democratic
> governance processes) as may relate to the global IG context,
> including the issues they seek to thus resolve or avoid; and
> 
> 2. On the other hand, the party insisting on having IG processes to be
> democratic can point to or develop a working mechanism of democratic
> decision-making and governance that will be applicable in the global
> IG context (and if I understand it correctly, this is what the IWTF
> proposal is about?)  ​

Yes, these are precisely the reasons why I posted the link: To
substantiate my claim that formal democratic decision-making can be
reconciled with the needs of Internet governance, and to thereby
(implicitly) challenge those who believe such a reconciliation to be
impossible, so that they would hopefully try to present better arguments
than what they have presented so far.

Greetings,
Norbert

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