Hello Keith,
I'm curious why you think a ccTLD manager's choice to not join the ccNSO equates to an unworkable accountability model for those who have opted to join and participate and bind themselves to ccNSO policy.
Over the years – a key performance measure at different times for ICANN staff has been to improve outreach to Governments, ccTLD managers, and gTLD registrars to encourage these entities to participate as members in the various structures at ICANN – e.g GAC, ccNSO, Registrars Stakeholder Group. Ideally ICANN manages to achieve a better than 75% level of participation in each of these areas. To get participation at this level – implies that the ICANN multi-stakeholder model provides value in various ways to the members of these constituent groups. If we get low levels of participation – then I think ICANN becomes far less accountable to its stakeholders. I guess it is a bit like getting voter turn-out for elections in countries where voting is voluntary. A Government "elected" by a minority of the population is general less accepted by the whole population of the country. Note that in Australia it is compulsory to vote in Government elections, and you are fined if you don’t ☺ Regards, Bruce Tonkin