[discuss] Representative Multistakeholderism (was: Re: Report from the BR meeting local organizing group - Dec 2013)

Tue Dec 24 14:21:02 UTC 2013

On Dec 24, 2013, at 8:21 AM, William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com<mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com>> wrote:

On Dec 24, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca<mailto:ca at cafonso.ca>> wrote:

Personally: we know the border between civil society and academia is not so clear, the same with the border between academia and the "technical community", but we do know there will be eight places in the HL for civil society+academia+technical comm... I think the communities themselves will have to sort this out. 1Net is viewing (if it does view anything clearly) three sectors: business, tech, and CS.

1net has four: business, TC, CS, academic.

I think it's best to say that 1net has been initially established with four communities, for purposes of
seating the coordinating committee.   The coordinating committee needs (amongst other things) to
establish processes for consideration of topics and development of outcomes; the role of appointed
representatives is such processes is indeterminate at this time.

Theoretically this is possible, but in practice it hasn’t been the issue or the debate since WSIS, and I don’t think it’s the issue here either.   I am curious though, who are these quite likely social scientists?  I know many SS who've ticked yes on ISOC membership and participated in ICANN but would never be considered by I* leadership for a role as rep of a “technical and academic community.”  Conversely, I’m hard pressed to name TC leaders and reps that social scientists like GigaNet members would say represent us.  Although the UN et al has never seen a problem saying this anyway.

I would be interested in whether there is any systematic model for representation, or even commonly
accepted practices, as there are aspects which remain unclear to me at this time regarding the general
approach to "representative multistakeholderism".    For instance, is representation valid based on a
parties past demonstrated activity in a given community, or is it their involvement with institutions whose
mission is helping a given community?  Is representation valid if self-asserted, or does the community
itself have to be involved in selection of representatives for the model to be valid?  How does funding
influence the legitimacy of representation, i.e. are community-funded representatives more valid than
those funded by governments or institutions?

Are there different levels of rigor for representative multistakeholderism appropriate depending on
whether it is for administrative/facilitation functions versus supporting statements of position on issues?
e.g., it is relatively straightforward for myself (or the ARIN Board of Trustees depending on the context)
to assert _ARIN's_ position on an issue but only to the extent that the position is germane to ARIN's ability
to fulfill its mission.  Representation of the 4500+ ARIN members on Internet topics beyond that scope
isn't generally appropriate without first conducting some member consultation and dialogue on the topic.

To the extent that the 1net coordinating committee undertakes duties beyond administration and more
towards 1net output development, these questions about methodical representation become rather
important; further, given that many folks on this list are likely more familiar with the "open multistakeholder"
model of outcome development (such as practiced in the IETF or in RIR address policy development), it
would be useful to have some additional insight into what exactly "representative multistakeholderism" is...

Thanks!
/John

Disclaimer:  My views alone.

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