[governance] Good examples of muiltistakeholder policy development at a national level?

Mon Nov 4 15:29:31 EST 2019

As Ian said, in effect, there is a lot to this one ...

With appreciation, for the history recounted below.

Adding to that history.

WSIS quickly became, though supposed to be about the global digital divide, thoroughly consumed with a struggle over who would control the Internet. (Or, 'not control,' at least in the ideology of one side.)

Multi-stakeholder was the flag raised to protect the non-governmental innovation by the US from some years before, ICANN. In those earlier Bill Clinton years, this was an artful creation to provide some necessary coordination, beyond the individual nation state.

By the time of WSIS, other world powers, both major and emerging, were clear that they too had a stake in the Internet, beyond just the US. At the beginning, in WSIS, the US stood nearly alone arrayed against the rest of the world, joined only by more or less the Five Eyes. In time a coalition would form with much of the Western states.

The other view? Alongside major powers, BRICS would emerge. Voice to the other view would regularly come from the Indian delegate of the time.

Nothing would be resolved, really, in this struggle. After WSIS, an ugly meeting would see blunt attacks on the ITU and countermoves in response. Further UN meetings would fail to reach any resolution. This was all 15, going on 20, years ago now.

The irony in this was the US – whose great gift to the world has been introduction of modern democracy – leading the charge to instate an anti-democratic solution.

And, could there – in a global world with a trenchantly cross-border service, the Internet – be global coordination with government decision making? The GAC could have become that. Indeed.

Such a 'democratic' approach would be, without any real question, imperfect. But perhaps not as imperfect as the ICANN we got. Where staff regularly ignored results from supposed 'bottoms up' processes, to implement policies preferred instead by management. And some of those management decamped, to business entities where they could personally profit substantially from earlier policy decisions.

As noted previously, citizen – civil society – vigorous participation is central to functioning democracy. And, as among others, Ian, has noted, the business sector tends to have outsize influence instead. The demand that civil society be accorded its rightful seat at the table is fundamental, clearly.

But, there is an approach, as above, where the full mechanism can also include the essential democratic piece, governments 'in their respective role.'

Yes, we (still) have a lot of work to do.

David

> On Nov 1, 2019, at 10:56 PM, Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ian, David, Tamir:
> Sorry for my late entry into this discussion.
>  
> We need to understand the historical context in which concepts such as “in their respective roles” and “equal footing” arose.
>  
> In the first phase of WSIS, governments insisted that global internet policy could only be made by them. That was their right exclusively, they believed, based on classic, 19thcentury concepts of territorial sovereignty. If you read the WSIS Declaration you see the roles for governments, civil society and the private sector spelled out. Private sector was supposed to be confined to operational matters, and the role of civil society is so vague as to be almost laughable, but it had something to do with local communities.
>  
> The civil society and private sector actors, on the other hand, wanted equal status in global internet governance. This was particularly true of those involved in ICANN, which was a non-governmental governance institution, in which governments not only did not have the final say in making policy, but actually were confined to an advisory capacity.
>  
> WSIS was a (not very coherent) compromise in which multistakeholder governance was formally recognized and accepted, but (as a document written entirely by governments) said that the different stakeholders had different “roles.” And the IGF was created as a forum in which all stakeholders could discuss – but _not_ decide – issues on an “equal footing.”
>  
> The division of labor called for by “in their respective roles” never really worked. ICANN went on about its business, strengthening the role of governments but never elevating them to the special status that the WSIS resolutions wanted. GAC is still advisory, and outside of ICANN, in things like the issue of cyber norms, we see civil society and the private sector as influential as governments.  
>  
> Internet governance is transnational and the “public” it governs is transnational, yet governments are territorial. Internet governance does not work by means of formal treaties negotiated among territorial sovereigns, for two reasons: 1) because the governments cannot agree on any rules, and 2) in IG, operational and technical matters are fully integrated with policy decisions so that private sector really has a lot of the de facto decision making power. Any attempt to govern a globalized system such as the DNS based on territorial sovereignty, for example, would threaten the global compatibility of the internet.
>  
> The thing to understand here is that multistakeholder governance, in which national governments do NOT hold the final say, is necessary for cyberspace because cyberspace is global, transnational. Multistakeholder gov fills the gaps left by the shortcomings of territorial governance.
>  
> Now, for you to ask, Ian, whether “multistakeholder governance” or “equal footing” is needed or works at the _national_ level kind of misses the point of the whole debate over MS that took place (and is still taking place) around _global_ internet governance. Of course at the national level, you have a single sovereign government and it is much less problematic for national decisions to be made under the framework of traditional national governance.  And in democratic societies, there are all kinds of consultations, public-private partnerships, and power sharing arrangements but in the final analysis the state is the decider at the national level. The reason we’ve moved away from that for global IG is because there is no global sovereign.
>  
> These issues are very close to the theme of an IGF workshop I organized along with Bill Drake. You can check out the speakers and themes here:
>  
> https://igf2019.sched.com/event/8255ed1c308e604776fbb689d39138dd <https://igf2019.sched.com/event/8255ed1c308e604776fbb689d39138dd>
>  
>  
>  
> From: governance-request at lists.riseup.net <mailto:governance-request at lists.riseup.net> <governance-request at lists.riseup.net <mailto:governance-request at lists.riseup.net>> On Behalf Of david_allen_ab63 at post.harvard.edu <mailto:david_allen_ab63 at post.harvard.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 8:36 PM
> To: governance <governance at lists.riseup.net <mailto:governance at lists.riseup.net>>
> Subject: Re: [governance] Good examples of muiltistakeholder policy development at a national level?
>  
> How about "in their respective roles"?
>  
> David
>  
>  
> 
> On Oct 29, 2019, at 4:42 PM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com <mailto:ian.peter at ianpeter.com>> wrote:
>  
> I am interested to know of examples of nation states that might have reasonable to good practices for involving civil society and the private sector in internet related policy development, along the lines perhaps of the ancient WSIS definition of "on an equal footing".
>  
> Is anyone doing this this other than in a token fashion? A few years ago we had a good example with Brazil, but a change of government changed that. What are our good examples now, or don't they exist?
>  
> Ian
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