Full title: From Openness to Participation – A Movement from Technology to Development Discourse
Access, participation and collaboration are cornerstones of development thought. Given their basic
characteristics of enhanced reach and interactivity, new ICTs can potentially enable greater access
(to communication tools and information) participation (in groups/ institutions) and collaboration
(for production), as postulated in IDRC's working draft on 'Open ICT4D'1. However, whether or not
they actually do so depends on many factors.
One key factor is whether the construction of these technologies itself is open and participative –
the area of 'technology governance'. Different regimes of technology governance will lead the
evolution of ICTs in different directions. Who controls this evolution, and what are the options for
preserving the egalitarian possibilities of the new ICTs? Between private and statist governance
models, are there possibilities that are more democratic? In a fast changing technology scenario,
who takes key public interest decisions? For instance, is it desirable to allow mobile companies to
jettison the principle of 'network neutrality' as they spread basic access? How are trade-offs
between different class interests, between short term and long term social gains and losses, and even
between different forms of 'openness' mediated? When the ICT paradigm is essentially global, what
are the national and local level policy choices available? Correspondingly, what are the avenues and
possibilities for democratic global technology governance? The proposed paper will explore these
issues.
Secondly, since social change is mediated through institutions, the real impact of ICTs needs to be
examined through their role in institutional change. Do ICTs necessarily make for more open
institutions? Institutional change depends as much on norms and power relationships as on
technological changes. An over-emphasis on the technology aspect can minimise the role of
normative and power-related issues in institutional change. This has been true of most dominant
ICTD discourse, and the proposed concept of 'Open ICT4D', if not nuanced adequately, may only
take this distortion further. In this light, ICT-induced institutional change will be examined in three
areas – multistakeholder policy models, e-governance and media – with respect to 'openness' related
outcomes.
Thirdly, and connected to the role of norms in institutional change mentioned above, is the issue of
discourse shaping in times of rapid ICT-induced social change. It is not as if access, participation
and collaboration are terms unique to ICTD. The concept of participation especially has a rich
history in the discourses of democracy and of development, and it is necessary to examine its use in
'open ICT4D' from these vantages. Terms like beneficiary, consumer and citizen (to which, in the
ICTD context, one may add the category of 'user') have been well analysed in their differential
implications for 'participation'.2 Such an analysis needs to be extended to the concept of 'open
ICT4D'.
The proposed paper will examine some key hypotheses of the 'open ICT4D' model from the
standpoint of the above three issues – technology governance, institutional change, and the concept
of 'participation' as discussed in current theories of democracy and of development.
Authors: Parminder Jeet Singh and Anita Gurumurthy
