[CCWG-ACCT] Governing vs co-ordinating (was Re: [community-finance] IANA Stewardship Transition - Project Expenses - FY16 Q3 update)

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 09:26:48AM -0500, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
> 
> Those are standards-setting bodies.  Those of us who study patents (and
> especially patent pools) believe that they too wield power, and are
> important governance actors.  They aren't mere "coordination" bodies.

Could you say more about what you think the differences are among
"coordination", "wielding power", and "governance"; and also whether
you think there is a difference between the way that those terms apply
to standards development organizations that work as effective patent
pools and those that do not?  It seems to me that some of these
distinctions could make a difference.

> here.  If one goes by the definition of "Internet governance" that emerged
> from the WGIG ("Internet governance is the development and application of
> shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs
> that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.") then ICANN clearly
> engages in Internet governance.

[and later]

> more it engages in a "governance" function.  (A nation-state, even a
> minimalist one, after all, is a "coordination body - one that sets polices
> and charges various fees related to national affairs", but also a governance
> body.)

But the difference here is surely one of sovereignty.  A
nation-state's government can undertake "governance" in the sense that
it can not only develop and apply "shared principles, norms, rules,
decision-making procedures, and programs", but also that it can decide
which of those are ones the violations of which people can be fined or
go to jail or whatever.  That is not something that other bodies can do.

Part of the reason some people (I, at least; I won't speak for John)
get concerned about the word "governance" is because there is a
tendency to slide pretty fast from "here are the rules" to "here are
the controls by which we shall enforce your conformance to these
rules."  That latter move has a faint scent of the illegitimate about
it, because in a network of networks there isn't anybody -- and
shouldn't be anybody -- who has the legimtate authority to make the
former move.  For instance, …

> only one canonical set of domain names.  Even if you believe that ICANN only
> does "coordinating" (it emphatically doesn't), it's "coordination"
> definitely leads to my being governed by my ISP's choice to use
> ICANN-recognized root servers.

… it most definitely does not lead to that.  Indeed, an awful lot of
networks connected to the Internet _aren't_ using only the
ICANN-recognized root servers, because just about everyone uses split
DNS some of the time.  Split DNS is just another way of accepting that
the global name space is in fact not the only one.  It's the only
_global_ one, but there are lots of local ones.  (This is a problem
for global co-ordination, I agree.)

Moreover, you could just use another DNS root, if you wanted, even if
your ISP didn't want to.  The reason we don't see a lot of root
splintering is not because of governance or rules.  It's because
fracturing the global namespace is much worse for everyone than having
these choices.  There is nothing in any rule or technology preventing
an alternative root.  What there is, however, is the vast utiity that
accrues to everyone if we have just one namespace.  So we have a
tussle to work out what that namespace will look like.

So, I think that the emphasis on "governance" is at least problematic
in two ways: it emphasises the role of sovereignty in a system that is
designed almost exactly to resist such sovereignty, and it fails to
acknowledge that the outcomes we appear to have are driven primarily
by utility functions rather than governance.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com