The Criticism section for the wikipedia page on Multistakeholder_governance: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multistakeholder_governance Was removed on 5 March 2017 due to lack of sources and other complaints. What it said was (from the 22 November 2016 version): Criticism Criticism of multistakeholderism comes from Paul R. Lehto, J.D.[citation needed], who fears that in multistakeholderism, those who would be lobbyists become legislators, and nobody else has a vote. Lehto states that "In a democracy, it is a scandal when lobbyists have so much influence that they write the drafts of laws. But in multistakeholder situations they take that scandal to a whole new level: those who would be lobbyists in a democracy (corporations, experts, civil society) become the legislators themselves, and dispense with all public elections and not only write the laws but pass them, enforce them, and in some cases even set up courts of arbitration that are usually conditioned on waiving the right to go to the court system set up by democracies. A vote is just a minimum requirement of justice. Without a vote, law is just force inflicted by the wealthy and powerful. Multistakeholderism is a coup d’etat against democracy by those who would merely be lobbyists in a democratic system. The important thought can be summed up (by me) as: In a multistakeholder system you dispense with legislators as targets for influence by interested lobbyists and just let the lobbyists be the legislators. I think there are uses for multistakeholderism*. I'm not convinced it was a good idea for ICANN. My impression is it was a popular buzzword at the time and it afforded, as above, governance primarily by interested parties. That said, I am not an expert in governance models. I've chatted about this with people who are and have come to respect that it's an area of expertise. It would be interesting to hear from such experts vis a vis ICANN. It's not that interesting to hear from people who aren't experts other than their subsequent reaction to the advice of such experts which would be important since they would become the governed. How might this change? The problem, if it is a problem, is that those with the power to force change (e.g., govts or similar) are probably pretty happy that someone else (i.e., ICANN) worries about this remit. The net runs pretty well even if there are complaints, scandals have been relatively minor and have been handled internally, so why upend their system? The devil you know versus the devil you don't. Put another way I think one needs something more than "it doesn't seem fair or democratic" or "some decisions I would have done differently". * Perhaps for example some public relations council for the dairy industry so interested parties can decide how the budget is spent. Or a medical licensing organization where decisions to remove a doctor's license can only be fairly made by a group of MDs who understand the issues. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*