[Bigbang-dev] Clarifying theoretical commitments going into IETF 116

[Sebastian Benthall]

Hi Niels,

I wonder if you could provide some concrete examples of what you mean by a
norm.

Cheers,
Seb

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 6:34 PM Niels ten Oever <mail at nielstenoever.net>
wrote:

> Hi Seb,
>
> On a more theoretical note - what I am currently interested in is trying
> to identify who the actors are that collaborate on particular norms. In WN
> I have sought to interrogate the underlying norms per governance body. For
> me two interests flow from there:
>
> - What are contested subnorms per body (and how to identify them, and the
> actors that propone and oppose them)
> - What are contested norms among bodies (for this we would need cross-body
> analysis)
>
> I would be very interested to see how much overlap there is across bodies
> and whether there are similar engagement patterns per company. In other
> words: is there a particular Cisco way of engaging in the IETF, 3GPP, and
> RIPE ? Or do they shift their approach per body? What can we learn from
> that, esp irl to Q1!
>
> I think it would be very cool if we could get some kind of cross body
> comparison going.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Best,
>
> Niels
>
> On 25-01-2023 09:39, Sebastian Benthall wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm very pleased to be going to IETF 116 as a public interest
> technologist!
> > I intend to so what everybody does at IETF meetings: ethnography!
> >
> > To prepare, I've been reading the seminal _Wired Norms: Inscription,
> resistance, and subversion_ (WN).
> > I'm reading this keeping in mind Priyanka's interest in a project
> connecting BigBang and Contextual Integrity (CI)-- something I am certainly
> interested in!
> >
> > I thought it might be productive to clarify some theoretical commitments
> and terminology ahead of time, since CI use the same terms with slightly
> different meanings and literature sources.
> >
> > What both WN and CI have in common is an emphasis on 'norms'.
> >
> > In CI, norms are always connected to a social context, and legitimized
> by the contexts purposes, the ends of agents within the context, and
> societal purposes. The norms in CI are informational norms, meaning they
> govern information flows, and especially flows of personal data. CI tends
> to see the norms as very stable -- part of the context as an institution
> and imaginary, to use the language of WN -- but the norms sometimes change
> with the introduction of new technology.
> >
> > WN uses a less sui generic sense of 'norm' taken from international
> relations. In many ways this is a richer sense of norm than CI's, as it
> comes with a theory of norm conflict, which CI in its current form lacks.
> But it is also perhaps a vague sense of 'norm'. My understanding is that
> 'norms'in IR theory typically bind state actors, whereas WN considers
> standards and protocols as themselves 'norms'. Neither of these are
> precisely the same as the 'social norms' at work in CI. For example, norms
> abot the use of the personal data of IETF participants, contextualized to
> the IETF, would be canonical CI norms.
> >
> > Norm conflict theories may be a good way to deal with one area where CI
> has an acknowledged weakness, which is in its (lack of) understanding of
> context collapse.
> >
> > Just riffing a bit in searching of a research question that might be
> broadly appealing... whereas WN addresses the norm conflict between norms
> grounded in the private multistakeholder governance values of openness,
> innovation, etc. and norms grounded in human rights (perhaps, Californian
> ideology vs. European values, to be crude about it), I'd hazard a guess and
> add into the conflicted mix managerialist values (corporate) and
> authoritarian values (various non-Western entrants into IETF
> standarization?).
> >
> > Of course it is most interesting if these values manifest in different
> _standards_. But in terms of using BigBang, maybe what we can observe is
> how different actors from different contexts/institutions _behave_
> differently within the purposefully "multi"--i.e. pluralized-- context of
> the IETF? Do they have different information norms? These are maybe
> "metanorms" with respect to the standards protocols, drafts, and so on.
> >
> > Am I hitting any marks here? What do others have in mind for a research
> frontier for BigBang?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Seb
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> --
> Niels ten Oever, PhD
> Postdoctoral Researcher - Media Studies Department - University of
> Amsterdam
> Affiliated Faculty - Digital Democracy Institute - Simon Fraser University
> Non-Resident Fellow 2022-2023 - Center for Democracy & Technology
> Associated Scholar - Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade - Fundação Getúlio
> Vargas
> Research Fellow - Centre for Internet and Human Rights - European
> University Viadrina
>
> Vice chair - Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet)
>
> W: https://nielstenoever.net
> E: mail at nielstenoever.net
> T: @nielstenoever
> P/S/WA: +31629051853
> PGP: 4254 ECD5 D4CF F6AF 8B91 0D9F EFAD 2E49 CC90 C10C
>
> Read my latest article on network ideologies and how 5G reshapes the
> internet
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596122001446
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