[governance] Pro-multistakeholderist versus pro-democracy viewpoints

[David Cake]

On 9 Mar 2015, at 5:38 pm, 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.

	I think trying to keep the argue at the level of principles is likely to be unhelpful, and to lead to continued disagreement and confusion.

	How things are articulated into actual governance structures is important. FWIW, above either multi-stakeholderism or democracy as a principle I value openness and transparency.

	Democracy has, in practice, become a complex system with many different things required for effective democracy, and we have shown time and again that once you remove openness and transparency from democratic processes, they become corrupted and weakened. We have, for example, the specific examples before us of TTIP and TPPA, opaque and closed processes, largely negotiated by democratic nations, that are promising terrible undemocratic outcomes. On a larger scale we have the mass surveillance machine (all 5 Eyes nations are undeniably democratic). And numerous secret trade and security treaties, numerous programs designed to serve influential elites, and so on.
	Democracy is a term that is both loosely defined and complex, and what exactly is meant by democratic is crucial. As an example of complexity, for example generally democracy is taken to include an independent judiciary, which is selected on meritocratic not democratic grounds in most nations - and despite this, such an institution is considered to be a vital part of democracy to many. A more general issue with what is a democratic is the difference between aggregative and representative ideas vs deliberative - some of us feel that the deliberative function of democracy is crucial, and by having open and transparent policy discussions multi-stakeholder fora are generally supportive of democratic ideals, and the JNC position often seems to hold that the aggregative role of democracy is far more important than the deliberative. Indeed, JNC positions often seem to imply that consensus itself undermines democracy and majoritarian positions, where a minority can more easily be overruled, are to be preferred. Actually having real answers to what we, in practical terms, mean by democracy in a particular context is crucial.

	And conversely I support multi-stakeholder processes when, and because, they are open and transparent. Through ICANN processes I know that positions are argued on the public record, that anyone who wishes can participate (there are barriers to entry, but no gates - the technical understanding of a complex policy area is not easy, but no one barred from gaining it), that there are no back rooms accessible only to lobbyists. When multi-stakeholder processes are not open and transparent (such as some WEF processes) I no longer support them.

> This is often done by insisting on the importance of
> multistakeholder governance without mentioning democracy at all.

	I don’t think this is done at all to elevate one principle over another, and I only think it seems so to those who are holding on to a viewpoint in which the two are somehow opposed.
> 
> 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.

	In other words - you are creating an argument here, essentially out of nothing. You are defining a matter of principle as being of great importance, you are then defining it in a way

	And further more, JNC members are, from time to time, taking on positions that I consider obviously and grossly detrimental to democracy in the global big picture, and then saying anyone who does not agree with them is against democracy. It is nothing but rhetoric designed to discuss a very different policy position.

> 
> 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.

	Absolutely. But you need to define what democracy would practically mean in that context, and do so in a way that doesn’t is both practically implementable and meaningfully democratic.
	So, ways in which you would define democratic multistakeholderism that would have the practical effect of weakening the position (especially the soft power position) of democratic nations, and so relatively strengthening authoritarian nations, would not suffice. Positions such as retaining 35 a) of the Tunis Agenda, and other positions that essentially strengthen the role of states, would seem to fail on this criteria. Similarly handing increased power for general Internet governance issues to the ITU.
	Ways of creating a democratic multistakeholderism that involve creating new global governance mechanisms that are likely to be strongly objected to by major states would seem to fail on practical grounds. While I have no objection at all to a situation that involves a significant democratic involvement by the citizens of China, one that would have to bypass the strong undemocratic bias of their state, I can’t see it happening in a useful time frame.
	So please, I, and I am sure many members of civil society, have no objection to the idea of democratic multi-stakeholderism in principle. But I find the approach you are taking here, Norbert, that we should agree on the principle of democracy (without defining what that means) and then a practical solution can be found, doomed - not on grounds of ideological disagreement but on grounds of a basically unsound method. You are trying to manufacture agreement before really defining what we are agreeing on.

	And I certainly have no objection to making existing multi-stakeholder institutions more democratic in operation, for a variety of properties of democratic. There were proposals floating for making ICANN a membership based organisation, for example, which would appear at least on a surface level to be more democratic (though the devil is always in the details). Certainly many accountability reforms would have the effect of making it more democratic in practice.

	Cheers

		David

> 
> 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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