In multistakeholder settings, national governments often claim that they should have special status because they represent “the public interest” in policy deliberations. But how true is that claim? Do governments actually intervene in these processes with a judicious, impartial eye toward policy solutions that are the best for everyone? Or do they tilt the scales toward the stakeholder group that lobbies them most aggressively and is most likely to give their bosses campaign contributions?
A recent incident in ICANN provides some interesting clues as to how governments really work. We now know that ICANN’s Governmental Advisory committee (GAC) shared a draft policy statement with only one stakeholder group in the GNSO – the trademark lobby – and kept all the other stakeholder groups out of the loop. the incident holds important lessons for those with the naive view that governments are “just another stakeholder” in multistakeholder processes.
