[At-Large] Multistakeholderism Explained (was Re: ICANN75: Mandatory Funded Traveler Registration for Roberto Gaetano)

[Kuo-Wei Wu]

Wolfgang + 1

Kuo Wu

Wolfgang Kleinwächter via At-Large <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>於
2022年7月28日 週四，18:17寫道：

> Hi,
>
> good discussion. The concept of "Multistakeholderism" has many dimensions,
> different sources and can be seen primarily as a political experiment in
> new social territories to promote the concept of "sharing" in policy
> development and decision making which goes beyond the concept of the
> "representative democarcy" (and far beyond the concept of "autocracy").
>
> One practical (political) source for the multistakeholder approach in the
> governance of the Internet was the UN World Summit on the Information
> Society (WSIS), 2002 - 2005. During the first WSIS phase (2002 - 2003)
> there was a political US-China conflict around Internet Governance. The US
> wanted to have "private sector leadership", China "governmental
> leadership". China argued, that "self-regulation (and private sector
> leadership) was good for one million Internet user. But for one billion
> users governments have to step in. US argued, if it isn´t broken, don´t fix
> it. There was no agreement among the two governments, Kofi Annan
> established the (multistakeholder) UN Working Group of Internet Governance
> (WGIG) and the WGIG concluded (after two years of intensive discussions)
> that the Internet doesn´t need a leader, but the collaboration of all
> stakeholders, which included "sharing of decision making procedures". The
> WGIG-definition included, that stakeholders has to be involved "in their
> respective roles", but the idea, to add "on equal footing" did not get
> enough support among the WGIG members. The proposed "WGIG Definition" made
> its way into the Tunis Agenda (November 2005). Governments in Tunis didn´t
> have any better idea. But it was a compromise, embedded into other
> paragraphs of the Tunis Agenda, including the recognition of "national
> sovereignty" for ccTLDs and the leading role of governments with regard to
> "Internet related public policy issues". Technical community got the lead
> in the "day-to-day-operations", but it was unclear, what the borderline
> between "Internet related public policy issues" and "day-to-day operations"
> was. The WGIG-definition differentiated also between the "development" and
> the "use" of the Internet. This differentiation produced the concept of
> "governance OF the Internet" and "governance ON the Internet". It was
> expected that the IGF will help to deepen the understanding about the
> multistakeholder approach. The IGF was helpful indeed, but it is neither a
> decision making body nor a think tank. Also the related process of
> "enhanced cooperation", which was aimed to clarify some of the open issues,
> didn´t produce anything, regardless of the work of two UNCTD Working Groups
> (WGEC I & II) in the 2010s. The best description of what the
> multistakeholder approach is (or should be) can be found in the "Net
> Mundial Declaration" from Sao Paulo (April 2014), which "defines" clear
> criteria as bottom up policy development, inclusivity, equality, access,
> transparency, accountability, openess, agility, decentralization etc. This
> is a good list of you want to "measure" the temparature of a
> multistakeholder process,
>
> Theoretically, the multistakeholder approach was interpreted as an
> advanced model for a "participatory democracy" (or "liquid democracy"),
> where the "people themselves", that is the concerned and affected groups,
> participate on equal footing in policy development and decision making.
> This was inspired to a high degree by the RFC processes, established by the
> IETF already in the 1980s and 1990s, long before ICANN was established.
> Remember David Clark (1992): “We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We
> believe in: *rough consensus* and *running code."* It was "rough
> conesnsus", not conseus. The ability to compromise and the will to share
> ressorces and decision making - based on trusted relationships among
> stakeholders - was the basis of such a concept. "Participatory Democracy"
> in this understanding was not aimed to substitute the "Representative
> Democracy". It was seen as an enhancement of the established procedures to
> solve problems in areas, where the "representative democracy" has its
> limits and restrictions. MultistakehoIderism was seen also as different
> from "public-private partnership", which excludes to a high degree civil
> society (and the technical community) from policy development and decision
> making. The argument was, if "big government" and "big business" will go
> together, this will lead to "tyranny" of the powerful". Civil society is
> needed to balance the conflicting interests and to block the misuse of
> political and economic power against citizens and users.  With other words,
> the multistakeholder approach does only work with a strong civil society.
>
> This was the theory. Illusion? Utopia? What we see today is, that the
> concept is used/misused intentionally by groups (including governments) to
> promote their own interests."Balancing" or "Sharing" is not the main
> driving force, if new legislation or new services are introduced. The
> Chinese government supports the multistakehooder approach, but it is
> "multistakehoderism" under the leadership of the Communist Party. The EU
> supports multistakeholderism, but it is MS under the leadership of the EU
> Commission. Even in the US there is a lot of lip service. The "Declaration
> of the Future of the Internet" (April 2022) supports the Multistakeholder
> approach to Internet Governance, but the text was produced by the "White
> House" in consultation with some (mainly European) governments alone. No
> multistakeholder discussioon and no public comment period. Civil society
> was sidelined.
>
> With other words, the 2020s see the "back-swinging of the pendelum". Is
> the US "Council of Foreign Rerlations" right, if it states that "the era of
> the global Internet is over" (July 2022)? What next? Do we have "re-invent"
> the wheel for the "Post Internet Era"? Do we need MS for AI Governance,
> Blockchain Governance, W3 Governance?
>
> I would recommend to be prepared for WSIS+20.It will start soon. Be
> engaged in the drafting of the Global Digital Compact (GDC). Comments are
> welcome by the UN until September 30, 2022.
>
> Wolfgang
>
>
>
> Barry Shein via At-Large <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> hat am
> 28.07.2022 08:02 CEST geschrieben:
>
>
>
> The Criticism section for the wikipedia page on
> Multistakeholder_governance:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multistakeholder_governance
>
> Was removed on 5 March 2017 due to lack of sources and other complaints.
>
> What it said was (from the 22 November 2016 version):
>
> Criticism
>
> Criticism of multistakeholderism comes from Paul R. Lehto,
> J.D.[citation needed], who fears that in multistakeholderism, those
> who would be lobbyists become legislators, and nobody else has a
> vote. Lehto states that "In a democracy, it is a scandal when
> lobbyists have so much influence that they write the drafts of
> laws. But in multistakeholder situations they take that scandal to a
> whole new level: those who would be lobbyists in a democracy
> (corporations, experts, civil society) become the legislators
> themselves, and dispense with all public elections and not only
> write the laws but pass them, enforce them, and in some cases even
> set up courts of arbitration that are usually conditioned on waiving
> the right to go to the court system set up by democracies. A vote is
> just a minimum requirement of justice. Without a vote, law is just
> force inflicted by the wealthy and powerful. Multistakeholderism is
> a coup d’etat against democracy by those who would merely be
> lobbyists in a democratic system.
>
> The important thought can be summed up (by me) as:
>
> In a multistakeholder system you dispense with legislators as
> targets for influence by interested lobbyists and just let the
> lobbyists be the legislators.
>
> I think there are uses for multistakeholderism*.
>
> I'm not convinced it was a good idea for ICANN.
>
> My impression is it was a popular buzzword at the time and it
> afforded, as above, governance primarily by interested parties.
>
> That said, I am not an expert in governance models.
>
> I've chatted about this with people who are and have come to respect
> that it's an area of expertise.
>
> It would be interesting to hear from such experts vis a vis ICANN.
>
> It's not that interesting to hear from people who aren't experts other
> than their subsequent reaction to the advice of such experts which
> would be important since they would become the governed.
>
> How might this change?
>
> The problem, if it is a problem, is that those with the power to force
> change (e.g., govts or similar) are probably pretty happy that someone
> else (i.e., ICANN) worries about this remit.
>
> The net runs pretty well even if there are complaints, scandals have
> been relatively minor and have been handled internally, so why upend
> their system? The devil you know versus the devil you don't.
>
> Put another way I think one needs something more than "it doesn't seem
> fair or democratic" or "some decisions I would have done differently".
>
> * Perhaps for example some public relations council for the dairy
> industry so interested parties can decide how the budget is spent. Or
> a medical licensing organization where decisions to remove a doctor's
> license can only be fairly made by a group of MDs who understand the
> issues.
>
> --
> -Barry Shein
>
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