The principle that Internet governance “is a joint effort which requires cooperation and partnership among all stakeholders” (Geneva Declaration of Principles, para 20) has become axiomatic since it was first agreed at WSIS, and is fundamental to the IGF as a “new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue” (Tunis Agenda, para 72).

However at the same time as this principle has been universally embraced, some of its implications, that would require the four stakeholder groups identified in the Tunis Agenda to collaborate on the development of joint policy recommendations (Tunis Agenda para 72(g)) have met with resistance.

That the strongest resistance has come from those stakeholders with the greatest investment in the existing Internet governance regime (including the United States government and its allies, the private sector and the Internet technical community) should cause no surprise to the political scientist.

However, it does point to the need for the autonomy of these actors to be preserved so they may participate in the fulfillment of the IGF’s mandate with confidence that in doing so they will not be undermining their own existing political and economic power.

The consociation (or consensus democracy) is an institutional design for the sharing of power between heterogenous stakeholder groups, which although well established in democratic theory, has not previously been studied in Internet Governance scholarship and thus not considered for the IGF.

One of the most significant characteristics of the consociation is that the stakeholder groups are granted the right of mutual veto on all issues of joint concern. The effect of this would be that in order for a proposal to become a recommendation of the IGF, all stakeholder groups would have to be in accord.

Although the IGF is inherently a consensual body, the distinction between the consociational model and other proposals for the development of recommendations by the IGF is that these are not (just) to be made by “rough consensus” between all stakeholders in undifferentiated mass, but (also) by full consensus between groups.

A feature of this model is that it institutionally reflects the political reality that the most powerful stakeholders will not actively participate in an IGF with the capacity to develop recommendations that they have not sanctioned, yet it affords the same power of veto to all stakeholders on an equal basis.

A second feature is that whilst not detracting from the need for all stakeholder groups to collaborate on the development of policy recommendations, it also institutionalises the reality that those groups will deliberate upon such recommendations separately when deciding whether to exercise their right of veto.

How can this model be put into practice for the IGF? It would be difficult to do so solely at the plenary level, since although the IGF’s open plenary body could be given the opportunity to deliberate upon issues and form a “rough consensus” view on them, sorting participants neatly into decision-making units by stakeholder group is rather more ambitious.

The Tunis Agenda suggests an alternative, by calling (in paragraph 78) for the formation of “an effective and cost-efficient bureau to support the IGF, ensuring multi-stakeholder participation”. The IGF has no such bureau at present, but only an Advisory Group, which as the name implies, is appointed by and exists merely to advise the UN Secretary General.

Admittedly, the word “bureau” has become a dirty word within the IGF (much as the term “working group” had before it) largely because of the misconception that it implies a traditional intergovernmental structure. But this clearly is not what paragraph 78 anticipates. And, in truth, it doesn’t matter if (like “dynamic coalition”) some other euphamism is used to describe this new multi-stakeholder committee.

But by whatever name it is called, one of the key distinctions between it and the existing Advisory Group is that its members will be appointed by the stakeholder groups themselves. This can be achieved by using a multi-stakeholder nominating committee whose members would be randomly selected from a pool of volunteers, and which would fill an equal quota of seats for each stakeholder group, taking into account the need for diversity.

The multi-stakeholder bureau would also no longer be beholden to the United Nations Secretary-General, but because it has been more democratically appointed, would have the legitimacy to make decisions on its own account. Even so, the principle of subsidiarity requires that any decision-making that could be taken at a grassroots level still should be. Thus it will still be for the plenary body to develop a “rough consensus” view on any policy recommendations that the IGF might make.

Where the multi-stakeholder bureau would step in, however, is in declaring that rough consensus and reducing it to a formal statement. Whilst the recommendation would be drafted in a collaborative process involving all stakeholders within the bureau, in fulfillment of its consociational character it would then be up to each stakeholder group to ratify (or alternatively to veto) the recommendation in its final form.

Whilst it might be objected that this would make it all too easy for a particular stakeholder group (governments, say) to veto a recommendation upon which both the bureau as a whole and the plenary body had agreed, it must be understood that governments already possess that power. The IGF is inherently a consensual governance network, which cannot bind any stakeholder to anything.

All that the consociational structure does is to institutionalise this existing effective power of veto in a manner that upholds the conceptual equality of each stakeholder group, and allows that group to deliberate upon the exercise of its veto in a manner compatible with its own procedural norms (for example, face-to-face diplomacy in the case of governments, and perhaps an open mailing list for civil society).

It is only through reforms such as those advanced here, transforming the IGF’s servile and impotent Advisory Group into an autonomous and legitimate multi-stakeholder bureau, that the IGF can develop the capacity to fulfill its mandate that was agreed in the Tunis Agenda.