The Many Flavors of Multistakeholderism

On the occasion of the latest edition of the IGF that just took place in Nairobi and in general on this debate on Internet Governance I gathered that the word “multistakeholder” has different meanings for different people.

It is indeed kind of funny how after almost 9 years of the reached consensus on this concept at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) most of us still are supporters of the concept and agree that it is through the participation of all relevant actors that Internet Governance should be dealt with. There was consensus back then and still is now. In 2003 when every government, civil society, private sector or technical community delegation went back home, rubbed his or her hands and said, “We won”. The funny thing is that everybody thought the same.  (By the way, the fact is everybody won).

Magic word that did the trick for so many years.  What really happened back then (as it happens in many International Summits) was that a very ingenious group of people found a word that made everybody happy and could end up in a neat declaration where everybody could shake hands and smiled at the camera for the final picture.

Have you asked yourself why would it be debatable to say that “everybody” is entitled to govern the Internet? It didn’t matter if you were a government of a small and least developed country, or an Internet activist, an international organization, a big multinational corporation, a geek, a NGO or simply an individual, you were a stakeholder and could be a part of Internet governance. It is like saying that we all want the world peace or that all children are allowed to go to school.  

What is the problem then?

However, as the years passed each party realized that what they meant by multistakeholderism was not the same other parties thought about it.  What seemed as a positive sum game is at risk of becoming a zero sum game with many undesirable side effects for the development of the web.

Clever and convenient back then but apparently cannot be stretched any further if we are not able to come to a consensus of what we mean by multistakeholderism or better if we are not able to see that undue intervention may change things in an undesirable way.

Are we back in square one? Why are we still debating who should control de Internet or who should run the Internet? It is running and the beauty of it is that no one controls the Internet. 

I am myself (I confess) a biased liberal international-economist who believes that governments should only intervene when a market failure occurs.  We all know the Internet flourished without any central promotion or regulation. It is working quite well and it is actually helping many governments in the world to achieve many economic, political and social goals, without doing almost anything.  The Internet as it is provides a great environment for innovation, which has allowed for the creation of magnificent platforms and applications not only for individuals but also for governments and corporations.  This is helping economies to grow, governments to become more democratic and transparent, business to reach more customers and countries to develop.

If you think about it carefully the public interest concerns in the Internet are not Internet problems themselves. As Vint Cerf has stated the Internet is a mirror of the population that uses it.

"If you stand in front of a mirror and you don't like what you see, it does not help to fix the mirror."

Being a stakeholder does not mean (by no means) that you should be controlling that one thing you have stakes or interests in. It means you should participate in a collaborative fashion with your other stakeholders or partners. Sometimes being a stakeholder would only mean to remain attentive of the evolution of things. 

To put it in plain and simple language: If something is working, why fix it?

If you are from the government, civil society, private sector, technical community, academic sector and are genuinely interested in the development of the Internet there is one thing that you can do: Get Involved Now and Do not Try to Reinvent the Wheel.  We are all part of the Internet ecosystem, just relax and enjoy the ride.