[governance] Debunking eight myths about multi-stakeholderism

[Seth Johnson]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Barry Shein <bzs at world.std.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW, the usual characterization of Tyranny of the Majority is 51%
> voting to kill the other 49%.


"Tyranny of the majority" is directly related to the problem of how
minorities' interests are guarded.  It's not about a bare majority
overtaking nearly the other half.  The founders in the US, both at
state level and federal, were very concerned about government running
out of control, including a kind of mob rule in legislatures.   I
don't think anyone in this thread is referencing the term very well,
but for instance checks and balances function in part as checks on
simple majoritarianism (like bicameralism, the notion of a higher
house, processes that balance representation of states versus
populations such that more populous states like California and Texas
don't have inordinate influence, the electoral college based on the
structure of representation in the legislature, federalism, tripartite
government with judicial review, fundamental rights, etc.).
Constitutions put in lots of features to operate as checks on the
government getting out of control, and indeed minorities have little
else to rely on besides these structural elements of constitutions to
guard their interests.  Court cases on discrimination are often about
this sort of issue.


Seth


> The mitigation is clear boundaries on what can and cannot be voted on
> generally referred to as "rights", you cannot violate the following
> list of rights with a vote...(list, plus evolved case law).
>
> There's generally some way to modify the list usually involving voting
> but one hopes it requires an inherently difficult process, not a
> simple up/down vote. A term is "hysteresis" -- once rights have been
> laid down then by design it should be difficult to remove or limit
> them.
>
> This is government 101 perhaps but it's also not been addressed in any
> multistakeholder systems I've seen except perhaps through by-laws of a
> corporation which is significant!
>
> But to my mind one can't get to what can be voted on without first
> having some idea of who can vote. These limitations have to be laid
> out and approved.
>
> Or by whatever the process for approving decisions is, voting is to
> some extent a metaphor for any reasonably inclusive and transparent
> approval process. Humming comes to mind:
>
>      https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282
>
> --
>         -Barry Shein
>
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