[WSIS CS-Plenary] Individuals and organizations (was Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] formatfor Tunis Summit)

[Milton Mueller]

Important points, Vittorio! 

We need to be careful of both the pre-emption of civil society (i.e.,
others choose our speakers, turning CS representation into a top-down
exercise) and the bureaucratization of civil society (the rigidification
of a few people into positions of permanent control simply because they
were there first or they cultivate higher-ups).

I am especially intrigued by this point:

>>> vb at bertola.eu.org 3/18/2005 5:22:30 AM >>>
>Bottom line is, we have to find a way to incorporate informal and
>individual activism in civil society participation to UN processes,
>otherwise you will only create a "conflict of the poor" between older
>NGOs and these new forms of aggregation, which will in turn contest
both
>the validity of processes like the WSIS (that's exactly what happens
in
>many online circles out of here!) and the representativeness of those
>civil society organizations who participate in these processes. All
in
>all, this is what is already happening on this list!

I agree with the sentiments completely. But the problem is that
randomized individual or even organizational participation can lack
continuity and responsibility. There needs to be a way to reconcile more
open participatory forms with checks and balances on binding decisions.
There must also be more creative ways to re-align the ability to make
collective statements with open participation. The IETF has a procedure
for doing this.