Multistakeholderism in Praxis: The Case of the Regional and National Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Initiatives

The growing phenomena of regional and national Internet Governance Forum (IGF) initiatives offer an opportunity to look into how various interpretations of the multistakeholder model play out in different cultural, political, and economic settings. The variety of ways in which the multistakeholderism is enacted are expressed through the organizational structures and procedures of these events, their funding mechanisms, their agendas and formats, the kind of participation they attract and enable, and their potential influence on the national, regional, or global Internet governance debates. This article is a systematic attempt to map out regional and national IGF initiatives with an emphasis on how the multistakeholder model is playing out in various contexts. This analysis builds on existing dispersed documentation of these initiatives, transcripts from meetings (such as global IGF interregional dialogs), and interviews with individuals engaged in facilitation of regional and national IGF initiatives. The goal of this exercise is to offer an empirically grounded framework for thinking about the emerging models of multistakeholder governance.