I couldn't help noticing the main obstacles that accompany the process of setting a policy. Here are some of them:

1. Multiple stakeholders with different interests (yes, we can call it politics!). In this particular committee there are 43 member states that are formal members with voting rights. Obviously each state has different interest. It was interesting for me to see the role that non-state members, organizations (companies, Non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations etc...) play in this process. Not formally of course. Formally, they had the right to bring their voice to the table and also participated actively in panels and keynote talks. Actually the powerful actor in the process that was able to change decisions behind the scenes was not a formal delegate. Additionally the difference between delegates who were politicians (elected positions) vs. experts/scientists (nominated positions) was clear.

2. Non-continuation of same stakeholders as time progresses - 'it does not comply with previous agreements from the past' was one of the strongest arguments made by delegates who followed the process from the beginning. Only one or two were such delegates. Actually most of the participants participated in few events but definitely not in all of them, and therefore had little to say when such an argument was raised. These few 'seniors' delegates not always choose to remind participants about past agreements which causes many concepts to be re-opened for negotiations although there were settled in the past.

3. The power of administrators in drafting resolutions is mainly by setting the boundaries and frames of the discourse. It leaves almost no room to the delegates (the countries) to add meaningful issues to the agenda. Therefore, usually participants concentrate on arguing about words here and there, sometimes even about a letter (see the story of the 's' below). I am not inventing the wheel here. Max Weber talked about the power of bureaucracy and administrators 150 years ago. Administrators stay longer than participants, and consequently are able to impact processes more efficiently.

4. Multiple parallel processes - Not only the number of stakeholders is a challenge, but also the number of forums. The issue of the information society is addressed in so many different forums. For example the UN task force, WSIS (world summit of the information society) I and II, G-8 DOT Force and innumerable meetings. What is achieved in one place does not necessarily hold in the other and vice versa. Confusion is the name of the game in conditions like that where the actors, forums and platforms for discussion are switched all the time.

5. 'fake' stakeholders - some participants are 'shadow actors'. By this I refer to actors that do not appear during the discussions and show up in the end for the debates and voting on the drafts. For example, one delegate (I will keep the name of the state with me not to cause a diplomatic incident) appeared only in the last two days and was mainly situated there not to discuss and come to an agreement, but to make sure that he can say NO to certain issues and to try to take certain issues out of the agenda of future meetings.

6. Non-accurate or up-to-date data - One thing that is not missing in such a process is data. And lots of data. Everyone has data and one can here often statements like 'we found that mobile technology is the only panacea to digital divide', 'telecenters are vanishing', 'Least developed countries comprise less than 1% of users in the world'. By the way, I don't agree with the first and second statements, but this is not the essence of the issue. When not everyone are experts (see item 1 above) influencing through numbers is an easy task.

7.       Focus of issue - a big challenge. Information society is broad topic and one probably wonders who determines the focus - would it be on broadband? Mobile technology? Collaboration? or maybe other things. Some are determined by external events which request attention, and by former processes. But in many cases see no. 3 for the answer. It is really about the administrators, e.g., the secretariat of the commission who decides the frame of the issues. Peter Bachrach wrote in the 70s about the power of agenda setting in policy-making.

8. Problematic interpretation of data - It sounds almost like a tautology - by saying the word interpretation, one can assume that some problematic flavor comes with it since it is rare to have all people agree to a particular interpretation. Here are two for example: 'Access is not an important issue when talking about poverty' or 'the regulator should intervene more'. Discussing only interpretations without understanding the data behind the interpretations does not help reaching a resolution.

9. From mandate to action - The word MDG (Millennium Declaration Goals) was mentioned in the discussions 100 times. I couldn't help wondering - how many people know what is MDG? What real impact does it have on the daily life of you, me and the societies surrounding us? And what does it mean that only 6 more years remain to achieve these goals? (I even imagined a curse falling on universe once we reach the d-day without achieving the MDG goals). How many out of all these crafted policies lead to tangible results? I wouldn't like to sound pessimistic.

10. Changes take time - Time reaches policy makers more slowly. While the discussions are important, some of them were already resolved or discussed in depth in academia and industry. The cross-fertilization among sectors is scarce unfortunately.

11.   Reaching Consensus vs. Majority/Minority Vote- Finally, some resolutions are achieved by consensus, which sounds great unless you have for example a veto person, someone whose role is to say NO in any case and exploit the fact that this is a consensus process (see item 5). Also when the gaps among the stakeholders are large choosing the consensus way is not ideal.

I would like to exemplify some of above obstacles in policy making via a story about a request of mine to add an 's' to the resolution. Yes, it is only about adding one letter, an 's'. I requested to change all the concepts in the resolution from digital divide (without an 's') to digital divides (with an 's'). In academia there is a big resentment and debate for years of whether to use the concept digital divide that implies dichotomous meaning of have and have-not access vs. digital divides which reflects more a continuum of inequalities and not only access. Here is an article as a background about this. Obviously many member-states objected the idea with four main arguments. One said 'only in WSIS 2003 we recognized a gender divide as part of the digital divide, so how can we talk about so many meanings of divides' which makes me wonder if one makes a mistake should he/she continue to make the same mistake only because the mistake occurred in the past and this is what one did since then? Bordieua called it habitus. Another person said 'the concept of digital divides (with an 's') reflects only an international gap. This was a bad interpretation of the data that they had in front of them. A third person just said No, because the request was made by a state that had a political dispute with the state that he/she represented. A fourth person objected the idea because in previous meetings the concept was agreed upon and all the stakeholders should stick to what was agreed upon in the past. And finally the chairman tried to compromise saying no to adding the 's' in this resolution, but will consider it positively in future resolution' (remember item 10 and 11 above - changes take time and consensus may create challenges). The story of the 's' is a story of obstacles that stand in the way of making a change in policy.

The UN

I will end this post by saying that maybe it is time to move from an 'information society' to a 'wisdom age' where information would be used wisely according to individuals and communities needs and not only according to the needs of countries' politicians and administrators.

I was really impressed by Talal Abu-Ghazaleh statement in the UN Commission for Science and Technology for Development. While most of the speakers in the the opening ceremony were very ceremonial, he was provocative. He kindly gave me his speech and allowed me to post it here. Here it is:

"1. Allow me to start by admitting that I come from business, and for the developing world - proudly so. Thanks for inviting me in both capacities.

2. To begin with we do not live in one world. The divide, in more than one way, is our major challenge. A WSIS in Geneva and in Tunis I spoke of the unfair race between Lions and Gazelles. The gap between the developed and the developing seems to grow rather than to narrow.

3. Accordingly, we need to develop different paradigms for the developed and for the developing and to be courageous about it. Yes, there are variations in each of the two worlds. But they have one thing in common: being on one side or the other of the dividing line.

4. We need to admit that we, all of us, failed to achieve the MDGs and to stop searching for fractional successes. If so, let us all go back to scratch board and draft new MDGs. We should not give up.

5. "ICT for Development"? Yes. Yet I also believe that "ICT Development" itself is a prerequisite for "ICT for Development".  Let us emphasize both tracks-interrelated as they are. I call on UNCTAD leadership to take the lead on this.

6. Infrastructure development in all its aspects must be a priority, for the developing world of course.

7. Information Technology is moving faster than Telecom technology development. A failure by business. Industry needs to accelerate telecommunications technology development to catch up. I call on ITU leadership to take the lead on this and to get business in full gear.

8. Braodband potential is underutilized - for the benefit of the developing of course. Much more needs to be done - by business too under ITU leadership.

9. I call on governments and intergovernmental organizations to engage business as full and equal partners with equal responsibilities. Business is the major creator of knowledge and wealth. Business role is crucial for all purposes. Business should be seen as more than a subject or a tax payer for government.

10. The financial crisis attack has been reasonable absorbed. We now face the much more serious economic crisis attach. he first is like a hurricane. The second is like and epidemic.

11. I know that many will disagree with me. The solution is not in avoiding protectionism, but is rather in a balance between liberalization and  protectionism. Let us admit that this is what the developed countries are doing now.

12. Innovations in the IT were accelerated by business profit motivation. The freedom in cyberspace encouraged greater investment in IT. There, the world is yours.

13. Telecom is to be credited for its role as a medium for the interent. Yet telecom should become more of a free space in itself rather than just a free space for IT. Governments and Business should jointly work towards jointly work towards that goal.

14. I foresee a telecom revolution similar to that in IT, making telecom universally free in access and free in cost! Only that can lead us to the realization of the so-called "death of distance" dream!

15. In this world of short-terminism, we lost sight of the fact that IP, innovation and R&D are the major weapons of economic power and competitveness. We need to go back to basics. We need to motivate profit motivation for innovation in all fields.

16. We need to search for answers why didn't "mobile telephony" become the "telephone", just like how "e-mail" becomes the "mail".

17. At "Unesco vision 2025" forum, two weeks ago, I called for action oriented mandates by international organizations parallel with policy formulation. In the developing world, we need implementation sponsorships more than advice.

18. Thankd you UNCTAD. Distinguished colleagues I salute you for your tolerance. Remember idiots may be right, sometimes, as Churchill once said.

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Geneva, May 25, 2009, UNCTAD

The first thought that crossed my mind when I prepared myself to the meeting is that being a scholar and representing a country at the same time may pose a challenge. What if the stance I will need to represent is against my opinions? I try convincing myself that this is a commission on a professional subject and therefore the political forces are rather minor. Although, I am a great believer that politics is everywhere (I promise to update in the next posts whether I felt stretched as a scholar or not).

According to the official documents main topics that will be discussed in this meeting are twofold:

1. "To discuss development-oriented policies for socio-economic inclusive information societies, including access, infrastructure and an enabling environment. It will also discuss the building of Indigenous capabilities in science, technology and innovation, which are essential for the achievement of both short- and long-term development goals."

2. The Commission will review the progress made in the implementation of and follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) outcomes at the regional and international levels. "

It makes me excited and disappointed at the same time. I am always happy to know that topics and challenges in the information society are being discussed at high-level of policy-makers forums. But then, how can one possibly cover these two topics in five days? My skeptical inner voice says that basically it is analogous to solve all the problems of the world in five days.

Another question that I ask myself is how much the "rich" countries will be committed to an agenda that is focused on development in developing countries. It is an important question.  Once a venue becomes identified only with 'less-strong politically' countries (and it doesn't matter whether objectively they are or they are not), the discourse and discussion becomes local and silo making it difficult to solve anything.

Here is the link to the agenda of the Commission some documents about the content. I will update daily from there.

Specially, I am interested to understand the latent interests of the different actors coming to that event. For example I already learned that since it is a UN event only representatives of countries vote, putting other bodies like NGOs at a disadvantage in the process. I am not sure that such an exclusive process leaves hope for an inclusive solution. Stay tuned.

Code 2 - Lessig

Lawrence Lessig’s Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace turns 10 this year (see an update version of the book that is interactive with users - Code: Version 2.0). The Cato Institute hosted a debate about the book for this occation. Below you can find Declan McCullagh's article which criticizes Lessig's approach and the response fromJonathan Zittrain, Adam Thierer and Lessig himself.

Lead Essay

• What Larry Didn’t Get by Declan McCullagh

Responses

• How to Get What We All Want by Jonathan Zittrain
• Code, Pessimism, and the Illusion of “Perfect Control” by Adam Thierer
• Continuing the work of Code by Lawrence Lessig

For conference papers published regarding the first phase of the project see here:

• Scholl, Jochen, Karine Barzilai-Nahon, Jin-Hyuk Ahn, Olga Popova and Barbara Re. January 2009. “E-Commerce and E-Government: How do they Compare? What can they Learn from Each other?” 42nd Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2009), Hawaii. [This paper is a runner-up for a best paper]
• Barzilai-Nahon, Karine and Jochen Scholl. January 2007. “Similarities and Differences of E-Commerce and E-Government: Insights from a Pilot Study.” 40th Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS2007), Hawaii.

These pictures were taken in the last week of marathon, before we sent the HICSS paper: