[governance] Pro-multistakeholderist versus pro-democracy viewpoints

Suresh Ramasubramanian suresh at hserus.net
Mon Mar 9 06:20:11 EDT 2015 

That definition below would imply that multistakeholderist opinions or processes are not democratic.  If you do believe that, be so good as to state it along with a definition of what you consider democracy.

--srs (iPad)

> On 09-Mar-2015, at 15:08, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> 
> Recent events seem to indicate, in my eyes at least, that a significant
> divide which is in existence within civil society in relation to
> Internet governance can be characterized appropriately as follows:
> 
> a) Pro-multistakeholderist viewpoints, which are characterized by
> elevating a principle of multistakeholderism to a very high status, and
> it fact giving it a status which is as high or higher than the status
> which is ascribed to the principle that Internet governance must be
> democratic. This is often done by insisting on the importance of
> multistakeholder governance without mentioning democracy at all.
> 
> b) Pro-democracy viewpoints, which are characterized by insisting that
> Internet governance must be democratic. Pro-democracy viewpoints may
> involve endorsement of multistakeholder processes for Internet
> governance (even if not all who hold pro-democracy viewpoints would
> necessarily agree in any way with multistakeholderism), but the
> principle that governance must be democratic would always be seen as
> having greater importance and a higher priority than any endorsement of
> multistakeholderism.
> 
> From the above it would be clear that any consensus between those who
> hold a pro-multistakeholderist viewpoint and those who hold a
> pro-democracy viewpoint would involve agreeing on a path forward for
> Internet governance that is multistakeholderist as well as democratic.
> 
> Alas what happened at the UNESCO conference in Paris was that some of
> those who have pro-multistakeholderist viewpoints (specifically, Jeremy
> and the US government as well as diplomats of a few other countries who
> had instructions from their governments to support positions of the US
> government in relation to multistakeholderism upon any such request
> from the US delegation) were unwilling to agree to any kind of
> consensus text along those lines.
> 
> As a result, the conference ended without reaching consensus.
> 
> I welcome comments, especially in relation to the characterization of
> "pro-multistakeholderist" versus "pro-democracy" viewpoints. I have
> written this with every intention of accurately summarizing the
> viewpoints of both sides.
> 
> Greetings,
> Norbert
> 
> 
> On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 09:32:17 +0100
> Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> 
>> For clarity, to the extent that my question about links to concrete
>> proposals from the pro-multistakeholderist perspective maybe wasn't
>> clear enough (and it maybe in particular wasn't clear enough that
>> those general references which Jeremy has given to vast bodies of
>> written words do nothing at all to answer this question), even if it
>> is true that there are vast bodies of Internet governance related
>> text which is mostly written from pro-multistakeholderist(*)
>> perspectives:
>> 
>> 
>> The context of this little side debate is that I had posted a link to
>> my proposal http://WisdomTaskForce.org and clarified that
>> 
>> 1) this is at the current stage simply my proposal - I wasn't posting
>> it as a JNC position, and
>> 
>> 2) JNC has an intention of publishing a relevant position paper, of
>> which I will notify this mailing list when it has been published, and
>> 
>> 3) the proposal to which I posted the link is a proposal for
>> addressing the challenges of developing *global* public policy,
>> without overlooking the fact that it is not always possible to reach
>> consensus.
>> 
>> 
>> Jeremy replied, IMO somewhat disingenuously, with the following exact
>> words: "So JNC is in exactly the same position as that for which it
>> (particularly Michael) regularly lambasts the pro-multi-stakeholder
>> people.  In fact, we have more concrete proposals than you do!"
>> 
>> 
>> Of course JNC has since it was created made a large number of concrete
>> proposals on a significant number of topics.
>> 
>> So the context in which I asked for links to "your concrete proposals"
>> was a context of proposals for addressing the challenge of developing
>> *global* public policy without overlooking the fact that it is not
>> always possible to reach consensus.
>> 
>> 
>> I would like to hereby reiterate this request, but now with what I
>> hope is abundant clarity: I am asking for concrete links to proposals
>> for generally addressing the challenge of developing *global* public
>> policy in relation to the Internet, without overlooking the fact that
>> it is not always possible to reach consensus.
>> 
>> (In case it is not clear what I mean with "public policy": I mean
>> policies for topics where the disagreements are about how conflicts
>> of interest and conflicting concerns of different stakeholders
>> should be resolved. This category of public policy matters is in
>> contrast to purely technical matters where the disagreements are about
>> questions of technical nature, i.e. "what is technically a better
>> solution?")
>> 
>> 
>> I am interested in such proposals regardless of whether I'm going to
>> agree with them. If a proposal is made and disagreement is expressed,
>> the discourse has been moved forward a bit.
>> 
>> 
>> By contrast, I tend to think that any attempt to continue the
>> discussion without concretely discussing concrete proposals in
>> relation to this important question would probably indeed result in
>> going around in circles.
>> 
>> By the way, Parminder has in a recent posting referred to essentially
>> the same question as it being a "lean and mean question". I find that
>> characterization quite fitting. I would say that it is a "lean"
>> question because it cannot be addressed by means of pointing to a vast
>> body of writings on a large number of somewhat related topics. And I
>> would say that it is a "mean" question because I don't see it as easy
>> to answer it in a satisfactory way.
>> 
>> Greetings,
>> Norbert
>> 
>> 
>> (*) P.S. in relation to the term "pro-multistakeholderist": I'll make
>> another posting shortly in which I'll explain how I see the
>> distinction between pro-multistakeholderist and pro-democracy
>> viewpoints, and in which I will solicit comments on that description
>> of this distinction.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, 8 Mar
>> 2015 09:26:32 -0700 Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:
>> 
>>>> On Mar 7, 2015, at 10:41 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, 7 Mar 2015 22:05:55 -0800
>>>> Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> So JNC is in exactly the same position as that for which it
>>>>> (particularly Michael) regularly lambasts the
>>>>> pro-multi-stakeholder people.  In fact, we have more concrete
>>>>> proposals than you do!
>>>> 
>>>> Where are your concrete proposals? Do you have links for them,
>>>> like I have given a link to my proposal?
>>>> ( http://WisdomTaskForce.org .)
>>> 
>>> If you're unaware of these, you have a lot of reading to catch up
>>> on.  Start at GigaNet (http://giga-net.org/).  For a less academic,
>>> higher-level outline, also look through the submissions to
>>> NETmundial (http://content.netmundial.br/docs/contribs).  For my
>>> own part, you're already aware that seven years ago I published
>>> over 600 pages on how the IGF could become a multi-stakeholder body
>>> that makes public policy recommendations, and released it under
>>> Creative Commons at https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0980508401-
>>> surely that counts if your Wisdom Task Force counts.  And do none
>>> of the current proposals for IANA transition (eg.
>>> http://www.internetgovernance.org/2014/03/03/a-roadmap-for-globalizing-iana/)
>>> count for anything?
>>> 
>>> If you're after a more generalised set of criteria of good
>>> multi-stakeholder processes (back at the Bali IGF what I started
>>> calling a "quality seal" of multi-stakeholderism), rather than
>>> proposals that are specific to the IGF, ICANN, etc. then you can
>>> expect news about another effort to produce something like this in
>>> the next week or two, following on from a pre-UNESCO side-meeting
>>> that some of us attended - but there's an announcement coming soon
>>> and I'm not going to steal its thunder.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, the supposed lack of concrete proposals is not the real
>>> point, right?  The problem that you really have is that you're not
>>> satisfied with what those proposals say, by aiming to transcend
>>> statist global governance, which you don't accept is democratically
>>> legitimate.  So let's not muddy the water with false issues.
>>> 
>>> I am going to take a break from this discussion for now, because it
>>> has been going around in circles.  Everything that could possibly be
>>> said between us on this topic, has been - many times.  I'm starting
>>> to feel like I should just write a FAQ, and reply to list mails with
>>> a link to that.  For now, if there is anything that you think you
>>> don't already have a response to, write to me off list and I'll
>>> point you to it.
> 
> 
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