Defining and selecting indicators
Monitoring democracy: deepening an emerging consensus
Monitoring democracy: consensus and challenges
Authors:
G.L. Munck
Publisher:
School of International Relations, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, 2006
The monitoring of democracy is both desirable and doable. Yet, as proposals to monitor democracy have gained prominence and as the political stakes of such exercises have become more evident, criticisms of attempts to monitor democracy have also been voiced. In this context, this paper considers efforts to monitor democracy and addresses four questions:
- Why should democracy be monitored?
- Who are the monitors?
- What is to be monitored? And,
- How is monitoring to be conducted?
It first highlights and articulates an emerging consensus regarding the monitoring of democracy. Subsequently the discussion turns to a set of new challenges that remain to be resolved.
These challenges involve complex issues such as balancing multiple political values, bringing politicians and researchers together, integrating monitoring efforts, and resolving measurement problems. Hence, a deepening of the consensus that has emerged regarding the monitoring of democracy through the incorporation of adequate responses to these challenges is going to require large doses of political will and much new thinking on the part of democracy promoters.
Yet, the paper concludes, much hinges on a sustained collective effort to tackle these challenges. Indeed, how these challenges are tackled will likely to affect whether the remarkable momentum that has developed around the monitoring of democracy over the past years will be sustained or begin to falter.
