emergence of the notion of multi-stakeholder internet governance during the. collegium budapest...

Emergence of the notion of

Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance

during the .

Collegium Budapest

August 5, 2006Bertrand de La Chapelle

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

A case study of the potential of complexity science in public policy issues

Bertrand de La Chapelle Collegium Budapest, August 5, 2006

[email protected] Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Government and the Media

This presentation has been prepared for the Seminar « Potentials of Complexity Science for Business,

Governments and the Media » held at the Collegium Budapest

on August 3-5, 2006

It represents a personal research of the author and in no way an official position of the French authorities

or the French Foreign Ministry.

mailto:[email protected]



Structure

1 – The WSIS (2002-2005) and what it produced

2 – The « four magic words » and how they emerged

3 – A new governance model and how it can spread


1- The WSIS (2002-2005)

What was the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) ?

And what did it produce ?



WSIS is a thematic UN summit

decided in1998

organized by ITU

that took place in two phases : Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005)

for more than 15.000 participants

a « Johannesburg for the Internet »




Four distinct constituencies

Governments International Organizations

Civil Society, NGOsBusiness Sector

Bureau HLSOC

CCBIBureauSC

Executive Secretariat

ITU




A four-year process

Geneva Tunis

PrepComs

Regional Conferences

2003 2005

ThematicConferences

2002 2004




11 major issue clusters

1. Role of governments and other stakeholders--------------

2. Infrastructure (Connectivity, Access)--------------

3. Access to Information and Knowledge---------------------

4. Building Confidence and Security--------------

5. Enabling Environment (Regulation, Laws)--------------

6. Capacity Building (Formation)--------------

7. ICT Applications (Health, Environment, …)--------------

8. Cultural Diversity, local content--------------

9. Media---------------

10. Ethical Dimensions--------------

11. International and regional cooperation

More than 80 sub-themes




Apparent and real Results

Traditionally : four diplomatic Documents Geneva : Declaration of Principes + Plan of Action Tunis : Tunis Agenda + Commitment

More importantly : A community of practice / complex network ? Four words : Internet Governance Multi-

Stakeholder Forum




A community of practice ?

Interconnexion of existing social networks among constituencies : Govts, C.S, B.S., IGOs

within constituencies, particularly Civil Society

Thematic clustering : CS caucuses, WG,

Active rewiring through connectors and convenors (via numerous meetings)

Electronic tools (mailing lists, web sites, blogs, etc…)

Scale-Free Complex Network ? Small World ?


2- The four magic words

Internet Governance (Geneva 2003)

Multi-Stakeholder Forum (Tunis 2005)

And how they emerged !



What was the issue (simplified) ?

Who controls the Internet ? (particularly its critical ressources - the DNS - and ICANN)

Pressure of countries (China, Brazil) to : impose a bigger role for governments end the prominent role of the US government

What role for the four constituencies ?

Almost a political deadlock at the end of 2003




A reformulation was needed

As an « Issue of Common Concern or Interest » (aka ICCI)

Governance means : neither pure government nor pure private or technical management

Internet Governance covers both : governance OF the Internet (infrastructure,…) and governance ON the Internet (spam, …)




Multi-Stakeholder Forum ?

a Forum is a neutral middle ground between : intergovernmental organizations (UN-type like ITU) the non-profit civil society structure (ICANN or W3C)

Multi-stakeholder allows : involvement of all consituencies without determining their respective roles yet

The first Internet Governance Forum (IGF) : will meet in Athens at the end of October




How this emerged ?

a four-year process slowly but progressively building trust and acceptance of CS and BS

progressive meme contamination of speeches, then texts through viral agents and promoters

some bifurcations (=> fitness landscape) and critical paths (inserting amendments)

tipping point under boundary conditions (the summits themselves)


3 – A new generic model ?

A new governance approach is needed for the complex issues of our time and the size of our

global polity.

But in spite of the limits of the present system we do not have yet a complete alternative,

only building blocks.



Complex issues ?

Trans-frontier /Global

Multi-levelMulti-actors

• Absolute sovereignty ?• Legitimacy of actors ?• Genericity ?




A global polity ?

The natural size of the Polity is a day’s travel (by horse, car/train, planes)

Political systems depend upon communication tools (voice, print, Internet)

Third generation of political systems : after monarchies and representative democracy, participatory governance ?




Three ages, three distribution issues

Agriculture Industry Digital

Landownership

Added ValueMonetary /

Non-monetary

MonarchyRepresentative

DemocracyParticipatorygovernance ?




A new Governance ?

Issue-based, not only geography based

Shared responsibility rather than mere sovereignty

Involving all concerned Stakeholders

Contributive rather than representative

Decision-shaping rather than decision-taking

Offering interoperability protocols between different governance frameworks




From Separation to Clustering

HierarchicalDelegation

Thematic Clustering

with overlaps




Multi-layer architecture

Governance Frameworks (ex : DDHC, preambles)

Governance Charters (Thematic Constitutions)

Governance Regimes (Laws, Regulations, Standards)




Iterative five-stage processes

Initiation DraftingEnforce-

mentAdoptionImple-

mentation

Variable roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders

in the five stages




A definition of Governance ?

The set of rules and procedures

Adopted and used by a group of actors

To initiate, draft, adopt, implement and enforce

Specific regimes and decisions

To address their issues of common concern or interest (ICCIs)


Perspectives / Conclusion

Will Multi-stakeholder Governance succeed ?

How to help the transition ?



Can MS governance percolate ?

Will work in the Internet sphere test bed (global nature, legitimacy of actors)

Reduces prisoner’s dilemmas situations and facilitates positive sum games

Already propagating to ECOSOC (NY)

Will replicate in and reform other domains of the international system



How to help the transition ?

Document case studies of Complexity Theory in public issues (ex. Health or Crime in Tipping Point de M. Gladwell)

Expose policy – makers to these examples in joint seminars with practitioners

Encourage trans-disciplinary research efforts with political scientists (conflict zones as well as constitutionnalists)



Thank You



P.S. : Personnal announcement

For a personnal project, I am looking for : data sets on professional conferences :

speakers, participants and exhibitor lists or a way to access them

efficient clustering algorithms for social network structuration (incl. overlapping communities)

competences in recommendation systems and collaborative filtering

emergence of the notion of multi-stakeholder internet governance during the. collegium budapest...

Documents

chapelle collegium budapest

media wsis

internet slide

media apparent

media structure

information society

french foreign ministry

thematic conferences