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ICANN and the Concept of Democratic Deficit Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review Volume 36 Number 3 Symposium: ICANN Governance Article 4 3-1-2003 ICANN and the Concept of Democratic Deficit Dan Hunter Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Dan Hunter, ICANN and the Concept of Democratic Deficit, 36 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1149 (2003). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol36/iss3/4 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ICANN AND THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT Dan Hunter* ABSTRACT The Internet Corporationfor Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an institution besieged. It has endeavored to be democratic but its attempts to do so have been disastrous. The typical explanationfor this is that the problem is with ICANN: it fails to meet its democratic obligations. My view is that the problem is with our understandingof "democracy." Democracy is an empty concept that fails to describe few, if any, of our genuine political commitments. In the real world, the failings inherent in "democracy" have been papered over by some unusual characteristicsof the physical politicalprocess. However, in online trans-nationalinstitutions like ICANN, democracy is exposed as a poor substitute for a number of other conceptions of our political commitments., This Article seeks to articulate these political commitments and to explain why democracy and ICANN are such a poor mix. It begins by charting the rise of ICANN and its attempts to be democratic. It then explains why democracy is an empty shell of a concept. It then explores some features of democracy and ICANN, explaining why the online world exposes limitations in implications * Robert F. Irwin IV Term Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. E-mail: [email protected]. I am indebted to Michael Froomkin and Ed Rubin for invaluable advice, comments, and ideas. The usual rider applies. To some extent I will be defending the indefensible (viz ICANN) and so I disclose that I am a panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) cases, which is an adjudication process administered (at some remove) by ICANN. This tenuous connection aside, I have never had any connection whatsoever to ICANN, its administration, or its members. 1149 1150 LOYOLA OFLOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW [Vol. 36:1149 of democracy such as the nature of the demos, the idea of constituencies, direct democracy, voting, and the like. It concludes that ICANN's example demonstrates that democracy is in fact anything but a coherent general theory ofpolitical action. We need to consider, then, whether we should continue to berate ICANN for its undemocratic actions. Spring 2003] ICANN & DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 1151 TABLE OF CONTENTS A BSTRACT ..................................................................................... 1149 I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1152 II. ICANN AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY .......................... 1154 III. GETTING PAST DEMOCRACY ...................................................1159 A. Aristotle's Dead Hand......................................................... 1160 B. Philippic.com ....................................................................... 1165 IV. ICANN AND ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY ................................ 1171 A. Of Hippogriffs, Shareholders,and Citizens......................... 1171 1. ICANN as executive agency ............................................. 1175 2. ICANN as legislature ........................................................ 1177 3. ICANN as corporation ...................................................... 1180 B. On Voting, Democracy, and Constituencies........................ 1181 V . CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................1182 1152 LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW [Vol. 36:1149 Railing away at ICANN because it does not meet some ideal model of democracy is likely to be about as effective as complaining that the US. Congress is too dominated by the money of those who finance politicalcampaigns. I. INTRODUCTION Any number of idealized conceptions of democracy have been projected onto cyberspace. Direct democracy advocates have suggested that cyberspace reduces political transaction costs to zero, and thus we can at last have genuine self-government with everyone voting on every issue all the time. Deliberative democracy theorists embrace the Internet because it offers the opportunity to engage the demos, informing each and every one of them, providing them with a costless way of debating and deliberating. Other examples abound. Participatory democracy advocates envision a vast sea of committed, electronically connected citizens directly engaging with their government-indeed, like the ancient Greek ideal, actually supplanting government and becoming it. It seems that cyberspace is like Coke: any democratic theory goes better with it. Unfortunately, theory and practice are slightly different. Indeed, the gap between theory and practice is larger in practice than it is in theory. In this Article I argue that there is a vast gap between theoretical conceptions of democracy and the reality that operates within online institutions. The particular institution at issue here is ICANN. This body is unusual, but, I think, characteristic of the types of online institutions we will see emerge as cyberspace matures. It is not tied to any specific physical place or jurisdiction, and so cannot rely on geographical partitions of the demos. Its constituents come from multiple arenas with divergent policy interests, so it cannot rely on homogeneity of interests as a means of generating political outcomes. Pretty much everything it does is published online, analyzed in detail, and criticized endlessly. As such, ICANN is an excellent case study in whether genuine, as 1. Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Comments on the Civil Society Statement, at http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/ Statement July-13_Comments.html (last visited September 1, 2002) (quoting Michael Roberts, CEO of ICANN). Spring 2003] ICANN & DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 1153 opposed to toy, or lab-constructed, online institutions can meet our expectations of democracy. ICANN has endeavored to be democratic, in some limited senses, but its attempts to institute typical democratic mechanisms have been utterly disastrous. It has representatives drawn from constituencies which, under traditional democratic theories would be largely unobjectionable, but in practice have displayed all the worst features of regulatory capture. It has run an insanely costly election where all Internet users were entitled to vote, and a vanishingly small percentage of them actually did. It has suggested that it should look to elected national governments as a proxy for direct representation by the people, and has been greeted with howls of derision; not to mention being accused of everything from bias, through self-service, to out-and-out conspiracy. ICANN's demos is characterized by a remarkable combination of vocal opposition and unresponsive constituency action. In Part I below, I sketch the structural features of ICANN, and explain the attempts to be democratic, and why they failed. There are two possible views why online democracy and ICANN have been such a disastrous mix. The received wisdom-no doubt the view held by the majority of participants in this Symposium-is that the problem is with ICANN: through ineptitude, foolishness, or rampant power-mongering by its administrators, it is to blame for failing to meet its democratic obligations. My view is that the problem is with our understanding of "democracy." Democracy is an empty concept that fails to describe few, if any, of our genuine political commitments. In the real world, the failings inherent in democracy have been papered over by some unusual characteristics of the physical political process. However, in genuine cyberspace environments, democracy is exposed as a poor substitute for a number of other conceptions of our political commitments. In Part II below, I examine the contested and contestable features of democracy. I begin by focusing on the embedded implications of the word "democracy," and how this gives rise to a series of arguments against the nature of modem politics and the rise 1154 LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW [Vol. 36:1149 of the administrative state. Following from Rubin,2 I argue that this focus distorts the account of the way that modem political institutions relate to their citizens. Instead, I suggest that we look at how and whether institutions, most notably the government, actually meet the political commitments that we consider important. These political commitments, securing liberty, avoiding oppression, reducing civil strife, etc., are meaningful in a way that the loaded term democracy is not. Part III then examines the nature of democracy and political commitments in online institutions. Within the context of ICANN, I examine whether and how these political commitments are met, and conclude that they may be met, even if we would consider the process
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