[CPWG] Suggested reading: "Hegemonic practices in multistakeholder Internet governance: Participatory evangelism, quiet politics, and glorification of status quo at ICANN meetings"
Evan Leibovitch
evan at telly.org
Wed Apr 19 15:10:47 UTC 2023
I see the issue of accountability as one of a few that keep At-Large
obsessed with its own internal processes to the detriment of its actually
being able to affect change within ICANN.
Consider that:
- Fully one-third of ALAC, assigned to it by the Nominating Committee is
unaccountable to anyone *by design*
- The rest is elected from At-Large Structures, a self-selected group of
organizations that themselves are accountable, at best, to a membership
that usually doesn't care -- or by self-selected individuals accountable
only to themselves
- No mechanisms have ever been contemplated -- let alone put in place --
to enable accountability to the mainstream of Internet users
- After decades of debate At-Large is far from resolution of whether its
constituency is registrants or non-registrant end-users. A distressing
amount of ALAC commentary is in service to registrants, rather than
non-registrant end-users who really couldn't care less about, for instance,
registrar-registry relationships.
Out of all the qualities that have come to define At-Large's aspirational
vision of itself -- accountable, transparent, diverse -- the component that
gets the least attention is effective. We spend far more time on internal
processes than policy, and over my decades of involvement I have come to
the belief that this is deliberate. That is, so long as ALAC continues to
consume itself with ... itself ... it will forever be retarded in its
bylaw-given mandate. As such, the vested interests maintain a clear path to
inflict their path without any resistance from the public interest.
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56
On Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 9:49 AM David Mackey via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
wrote:
> Hi Hadia,
>
>
> Thank you for your cogent analysis by taking the original research and
> applying it for relevance to the At-Large community. I benefit from your
> analysis. It definitely adds to the conversation originally triggered by
> Joanna.
>
>
> I concur with you about the need to promote and encourage research within
> At-Large, but I think it might be wise to broaden the scope to include
> ICANN, At-Large & Global End Users. The idea of encouraging research may
> align with some of Evan’s ideas, although the pragmatic hurdle of funding
> research cannot be avoided.
>
>
> In addition to the need for more academic research, I believe Maureen’s
> contribution yesterday highlights an important dimension of the environment
> in which At-Large exists. Specifically, Maureen’s quote which follows
> caught my attention … “You can't compare the work that is done by
> volunteers in the ALAC and the GAC who don't come to the ICANN table with
> the technical knowledge and expertise of the SO community, so that AC
> end-user interests are dismissed as insignificant.”
>
>
> Hadia,I think the role you identify at the end of your analysis which
> addresses Quiet Politics aligns with Maureen’s statement. My experience
> with technology tells me this is a non-trivial and never-ending task.
> However, At-Large can be successful in this task with support from staff
> plus constant effort by ALSs & individual members. The need for appropriate
> funding, again, cannot be avoided.
>
>
> I finish with a question to the At-Large community, which was triggered
> from your statement … “Promoting and ensuring effective accountability
> mechanisms are in place”.
>
>
> I’m not familiar with the term “accountability mechanisms”. Maybe someone
> with more governance experience and knowledge of At-Large history can share
> their ideas and/or views of past conversations on the topic of
> accountability mechanisms within ICANN & At-Large. Accountability
> mechanisms seem to be an important issue which could be linked to the
> legitimacy of At-Large, and ICANN as an institution.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 6:30 PM Hadia El Miniawi via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Joanna,
>>
>> Thank you for sharing this interesting read. I briefly tried to look at
>> the study from an At-Large perspective and how we could use some of the
>> learnings to benefit the work that we do. But first let me share some notes
>> and observations from the study which could be of interest to At-Large:
>>
>>
>> - The study looked into which stakeholder groups have a high
>> influence in shaping the language tone of GNSO meetings, the transcripts
>> analyzed were of the nine GNSO stakeholders, thus the study in that regard
>> is basically an analysis of the language influence and power within the
>> GNSO and not at ICANN in general
>> - ICANN was seen as focusing on technical efficiencies and customer
>> satisfaction, failing to address political and public policy implications
>> - The length of ICANN multi-stakeholder policy development could
>> hinder effective participation of some stakeholders, most probably those
>> who are lesser resourced.
>> - The lack of capacity of lesser resourced stakeholders to understand
>> the complexity of " technically opaque policy fields" can lead to
>> asymmetric power that threatens equal participation.
>> - The importance of an effective accountability mechanism
>> - The Hegemonic discourse analysis focused on GNSO meetings and the
>> role played by language, however the conclusion extends the findings to the
>> entire ICANN multi-stakeholder practice. Extending the findings to the
>> entire ICANN multi-stakeholder practice requires considering stakeholder
>> groups other than the GNSO and other processes and technical
>> considerations.
>> - The quite politics part generally speaking applies to all
>> multi-stakeholder practices, thus it is neither limited specifically to the
>> GNSO nor generally to ICANN
>> - The participatory evangelism part is quite interesting because it
>> speaks to the difference between participation and influence over the
>> decision.
>>
>> As an At-large community I see a role for us in
>>
>> - *Addressing the Quite Politics Part:
>>
>> *Continue to develop
>> skill development programs that help stakeholders with lesser resources
>> understand the policy issues, this would help address the issue of more
>> dominant and skilled groups being in control.
>> - *Addressing Participants Evangelism Part:
>>
>> *Promoting and ensuring effective
>> accountability mechanisms are in place, which would ensure both
>> participation and influence over decision.
>> - Promote and encourage research within the At-large community in
>> order to know more about At-large participation and how we could improve it.
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Hadia
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 01:54:39 PM EDT, jkuleszaicann--- via CPWG <
>> cpwg at icann.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the rich and informative feedback. Indeed, Bill, I thought
>> that comparing and contrasting the three papers (two studies, if you will)
>> was interesting and worthy of an e-mail exchange. It is thought-provoking
>> that, as you observe, an ICANN PDP study fully abstracts from any end-user
>> input. I do share David and Evan’s concerns that the end user community
>> falls largely outside the research scope, regardless of whether its an
>> ICANN-commissioned legitimacy study (J.A. Scholte) or an independent, young
>> researcher’s work with the telling typo in our constituency’s name (van
>> Klyton et al). The quiet politics section is particularly interesting.
>> Referring to the ICANN MSM (not just the GNSO) it notes “a lack of
>> sufficient specialized knowledge“ that “might result in an inability of
>> lesser-resourced stakeholders to sustain high salience for an issue over an
>> extended period, which facilitates control by dominant and more skilled
>> groups”, which is what Maureen points to if I’m reading her message
>> correctly. These are particularly interesting in light of the MSM plenary
>> in Cancun, where we found it difficult to identify specific challenges and
>> offer solutions. This and similar research work might help us – the ICANN
>> community – address these needs, adjust, and evolve, if that’s what we
>> truly wish to see happen. Not that these observations are particularly
>> novel or revolutionary, but they do give us the background to use in our
>> policy and advocacy work.
>>
>>
>>
>> Any further thoughts are most welcome, thanks for all the feedback
>> received thus far.
>>
>>
>>
>> With all best wishes,
>>
>> Joanna
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org> *On Behalf Of *Bill Jouris via CPWG
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 18, 2023 7:27 PM
>> *To:* cpwg at icann.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [CPWG] Suggested reading: "Hegemonic practices in
>> multistakeholder Internet governance: Participatory evangelism, quiet
>> politics, and glorification of status quo at ICANN meetings"
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Joanna,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for this.
>>
>>
>>
>> I note that the study looks (if I'm reading it correctly) at practices
>> *within* the GNSO, rather than across ICANN generally.
>>
>>
>>
>> There are certainly similarities in the practices. But which ICANN
>> stakeholders dominate the overall organization is, unfortunately, not
>> addressed. And that is something we should be concerned with.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bill Jouris
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
>> <https://go.onelink.me/107872968?pid=InProduct&c=Global_Internal_YGrowth_AndroidEmailSig__AndroidUsers&af_wl=ym&af_sub1=Internal&af_sub2=Global_YGrowth&af_sub3=EmailSignature>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 2:17 AM, jkuleszaicann--- via CPWG
>>
>> <cpwg at icann.org> wrote:
>>
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