[governance] Pro-multistakeholderist versus pro-democracy viewpoints

David Cake dave at difference.com.au
Sun Mar 22 03:43:42 EDT 2015 

> On 9 Mar 2015, at 5:38 pm, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
[snipped]
> 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.

	I think that valuable work has been done in discussing the principles of multi-stakeholderism that should be retained, and there is agreement on at least some (no one seems to be against transparency and accountability, though there is still some ambiguity in my mind as to whether JNC favours openness - there seems to be some reluctance to fully extend that principle to being fully open to commercial participation).
What we need from ‘pro-democracy’ advocates is: a clarification of what is meant by democracy within the specific context of trans-national policy work (representative or direct democracy? Deliberative, or just majoritarian? With safeguards to protect minorities from majoritarian excess, or not?), and how it would be implemented. As Milton pointed out, there is not a consensus understanding of what ‘democratic’ means in practice within a trans-national policy process. There are also specific reasons why some Multi-stakeholder groups (most notably the IETF) eschew voting and similar direct democratic methods.
	FWIW, I do not consider any form of ‘1 state 1 vote’ to be particularly democratic, and I do not really understand how broader democratic principles at the global level would be implemented. A commitment to democracy is only meaningful if it can be practically implemented, and while I’d love to see a robust mechanism for global democracy at the transnational level, I have yet to see one that could practically be implemented.

	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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