Monitory democracy

Representative democracy is a system of democratic government where elected officials represent the citizen body in policy-making.[9] Thomas Hobbes developed the doctrine of representation describing it as a system government with the authorisation of the people to act in their behalf.[10] The notion of political representation emerged when the Athenian system of direct democracy began to limit the size of the citizenry.[10] When the citizenry became too large for people to physically meet and vote on issues, individuals began to select representatives to act on their behalf.[10] The first recognised representative assembly was the 17th century British Parliament.[10]

The creation of print culture and mass broadcasting media within representative democracy[8] enabled self organised pressure groups to emerge.[8] In response, political programs were designed specifically to "win the support of the people and to address voter concerns".[10]

There are currently two systems of representative democracy; parliamentary and presidential. The dynamics of representation operating within both these systems is impacted by monitory institutions which have "spread a culture of voting".[8]

Whilst Keane theorises monitory democracy as an expansion of representative democracy, stating, "just as modern representative democracies preserve the old custom of public assemblies of citizens, so monitory democracies keep alive and depend upon legislatures, political parties and elections...",[8] he indicates that monitory democracy "breaks the grip of the majority rule principle associated with representative democracy".[2]

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The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index Map 2018 - used to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries[11]

Monitory democracy relies on the assumption that democracies are "the most power sensitive polities ever known to humanity, democracies are capable of democratising themselves.".[1]

At the start of 1945 there were only 12 representative democracies in the world.[8] After the end of World War 2 the number of democracies began to rise again, increasing to 30 democratic regimes by 1959.[12] In 1991 when the Iron Curtain fell, there were 63 democracies in the world.[12] By 2017, 57% of countries, with populations of at least 500,000 people, were democracies.[13]

However, Keane states that the shift from representative to monitory democracy was the global awareness of the "dysfunctions and despotic potential of majority-rule democracy in representative form"[2] in tandem with the development of human rights recognition. This historical shift was facilitated by individual actors, collective groups, NGO's and the media.[2]

A monitor is a "device used for observing, checking, or keeping a continuous record of something."[14] to ensure it is carried out fairly.[14] Monitory institutions developed to democratise and scrutinise power.[2] Technological and communicatory shifts such as the creation of the Internet and the commercialisation of the media, led to an increased demand for factual and objective based power monitoring.[2]

Within monitory democracy public political participation is not exclusively achieved through representation.[8] Through means of unelected representatives "all fields of social and political life come to be publicly scrutinised"[8] where citizens can participate in all political areas such as health care and social welfare.[8] This impact of monitoring on representative democracy causes both national governments and international bodies (such as the United Nations) which represent the citizenry, to have increased accountability to them.[1]

Keane describes the political dynamics of monitory democracy as a system where, "elected and unelected representatives routinely strive to define and to determine who gets what, when and how; but the represented, taking advantage of various power-scrutinising devices, keep tabs on their representatives..."[2]

Monitory democracy is entrenched by the notion of communicative abundance.[2]

Keane describes the concept of communicative abundance as the political idea of replacing the "scarcity"[15] of free press and public opinion with their abundance.

Technical restraints have been placed by governments on public access to information and expressions of opinion.[15] Keane states that within a democracy "power should be subject to ongoing public scrutiny"[15] with "more and better targeted media coverage to ensure that controversies about secret power are frequent and ongoing".[15] This "implied the creation of a common, accessible space in which matters of public importance could be considered freely and openly.".[15]

Communicative abundance involves the integration of media information within an affordable and accessible global network.[15] It is within this global network that monitory institutions operate under the "ethos of communicative abundance".[8] In doing so, communicative abundance represents the democratic intersection of the public and private sphere.[15]

Communicative abundance is unstable and presents a number of self-contradictory issues.[15] Some contradictions within communicative abundance include:[15]

• Increased public conflict and disagreement[15]
• Reinforcement of the socio-economic 'utility gap' because "abundance is a relational concept"[15]
• Violations of privacy[15]
• The growth of new contesting ideologies[15]

A watchdog institution is "a person or organisation responsible for making certain that companies obey particular standards and do not act illegally".[16]

Keane states that watch-dog institutions build upon the instruments of representative democracy such as "ombudsmen, royal commissions, public enquiries and independent auditors check".[2]

As a monitory mechanism, watchdog's demonstrate government's restricting their own arbitrary power through semi-independent organisations staffed by unelected representatives.[2] They act as a "group that watches the activities of a particular part of government in order to report illegal acts or problems" which violate public interest.[17]

In Australia in 1970–1980, media coverage of government corruption led to two royal commissions which resulted in the establishment of watch-dog institutions.[2] These were the Police Complaints Authority in 1985, the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission in 1990 and then the statutory Office of Integrity Commissioner.[2]

Guide-dog institutions, such as electoral commissions and anti-corruption bodies, are neutral bodies who uphold and protect the level of democracy by 'guiding' policy and government behaviour.[2]

A non-governmental organisation (NGO) is a "voluntary group of individuals or organisations, usually not affiliated with any government that is formed to provide services or to advocate a public policy".[18] These organisations have humanitarian and cooperative objectives rather than commercial ones.[19] NGO's advocate for public interest through researched and publicised campaigns.[8]

Under monitory democracy NGO's provide the public with more information and actively lobby governments to alter policy.[8]

Organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International operate to routinely deal with human rights violations.[8] Keane states that these bodies answer the question of "who decides who 'the people' are",[8] advocating that "every human being is entitled to exercise their right to have rights, including the right to take advantage of communicative abundance by communicating freely with others as equals".[8]

Some accredited Australian NGO's include Action on Poverty, Oxfam Australia, Transform Aid International, World Vision Australia, WWF Australia, UNICEF Australia.[20]