Monitory Democracy

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

Portuguese Abstract: O presente artigo busca fazer uma abordagem jurídica da tomada de decisão das cortes superiores, supremas e constitucionais a partir do conceito de “Democracia Monitória” em John Keane, e sobre a mais proeminente ameaça à sua existência, o “Triângulo da Violência”, composto por: 1) Anarquia Nuclear, 2) Guerra Incivil, e 3) Terrorismo Apocalíptico, também a partir de John Keane. Neste sentido, cunhamos a expressão “Triângulo da Violência Argumentativa”, no qual elencamos três vértices que seriam perigosos para “Democracia Monitória”: 1) Anarquia Argumentativa, quando pesquisamos a distinção entre modelos deliberatórios (seriatin e per curiam), 2) Disputa Incivil, quando abordamos as chamadas “Rambo Tatics”, e 3) Argumento Ad Terrorem. Esta é uma breve análise.

English Abstract: This article aims to make a legal approach to decision-making of Supreme, Superior and Constitutional Courts, from the concept of "Monitory Democracy" in John Keane, and the most prominent threat to its existence, the "Triangle of Violence," composed of: 1) Nuclear Anarchy, 2) Uncivil War, and 3) Apocalyptic Terrorism, also from John Kene. In this sense, we coined the "Triangle of Argumentative Violence", in which we list three vertices that would be dangerous for "Monitory Democracy": 1) Argumentative Anarchy, from the distinction between deliberative models (seriatin and per curiam), 2) Uncivil Dispute, when we discuss the so called "Rambo Tactics", and 3) Ad Terrorem Argument. This is a brief analysis.

El contexto político español atraviesa, desde hace unos años, por un momento altamente complejo y, a la vez, de una efervescencia apasionante. Las encuestas y estudios demoscópicos evidencian una fuerte desafección ciudadana definida por un sentimiento de cinismo y falta de confianza con respecto al proceso político representativo. Al mismo tiempo hemos sido testigos de la irrupción de múltiples formas de participación que incluyen: acampadas, manifestaciones, detención de desahucios, irrupción de plataformas de monitorización, formación de nuevos partidos políticos, surgimiento de medios de comunicación alternativos, iniciativas legislativas populares, y un largo etcétera. En España se ha consolidado desde 2011 un auténtico laboratorio democrático donde la ciudadanía experimenta con nuevas formas de expresión política. Este libro se introduce de lleno en este laboratorio político para comprobar cómo están cambiando los perfiles de la democracia. Un ejercicio que no sólo tiene una relevancia en clave española, sino que proyecta su interés más allá, puesto que puede ser el anuncio de cambios que pueden afectar, en los próximos tiempos, a otras democracias en el mundo. Si estamos en lo cierto y nuestro contexto está en la vanguardia de la innovación y la experimentación política, este libro puede servir para saber hacia dónde evoluciona la democracia tanto hoy como en el futuro inmediato.

Analysing the current political context in Spain is a major challenge to political theory. Spain is experiencing the accumulation of trends that in recent years have focused the attention of most theorists and political scientists: discrediting of the major parties, falling numbers of party members, disaffection, etc. In parallel, this trend has been accompanied by citizen mobilisations that, since 15 May 2011, are manifest in numerous channels and strategies. The aim of this paper was to analyse the complex Spanish context from the monitory democracy proposal. The results show how in recent years processes of public scrutiny have been consolidated through a range of citizen initiatives. The study offers an in-depth analysis of the main characteristics of the most notable cases and monitoring initiatives, and also reflects on their democratising potential.

A Lei de Acesso à Informação (LAI) brasileira foi sancionada em novembro de 2011
(lei federal 12.527/2011) e regulamentada por decreto no ano seguinte, passando a vigorar no
dia 16 de maio (decreto 7.724/2012). Desde a efetiva implantação da política pública, quando
a União passou a receber perguntas da população e a respondê-las, dentro de até 30 dias, já
foram protocoladas mais de 573 mil solicitações. Destes requerimentos por informação
oficial, as perguntas e as respostas dadas a 231 mil estão abertas à consulta pública. São as
solicitações atendidas após julho de 2015, quando a então Controladoria Geral da União
(CGU) habilitou essa funcionalidade, após incorporar rotinas para manter anônimo o
remetente dos pedidos de informação. Também é possível consultar casos em que, após ter a
solicitação de informação negada, o cidadão recorreu e teve o pedido reanalisado pelas
comissões revisoras – mais de 30 mil casos, considerando todas as instâncias de apelação.
Fixado este ponto, deve-se considerar então que, desde julho de 2015, quando a CGU abriu à
consulta pública sua base de dados a respeito dos pedidos e respostas à LAI, os cientistas
sociais têm negligenciado esses documentos como fonte de pesquisa qualitativa sobre as
circunstâncias da democracia no Brasil. Há pouca produção acadêmica a partir dessa base de
dados. Este artigo lança as bases para uma periodização complexa do surgimento da LAI no
Brasil, como ponto de partida para uma agenda de pesquisa que veja, nessas mais de 261 mil
interações entre cidadãos e órgãos públicos documentadas pela União, uma oportunidade e
um ponto de partida para a ampliação do debate as políticas públicas de transparência no
Brasil e no exterior. Esse esforço de problematização não é só para mostrar um novo banco de
dados à comunidade científica. É também uma invocação das circunstâncias nas quais essa
troca de conteúdos entre cidadão e Estado ocorre – já que se entende que a LAI, enquanto
política pública de transparência, é um artefato político. Segundo, que o processo que resultou
na sua vigência carece de uma periodização complexa, atrelada a uma genealogia – também
por fazer – do direito de acesso à informação na sociedade contemporânea. Terceiro, que as
“democracias digitais” são um campo de estudo em disputa, com diferentes visões de mundo
em colisão.

This thesis analyses the online interactions between individuals and Brazilian democratic institutions on social networking. For this, it seeks to test the normative theory of John Keane (2010; 2015; 2018) empirically, which characterizes a new stage of monitoring contemporary democracies, considering factors like crisis and communicative abundance on representativeness relations. The purpose of the research is to test if there is civic monitoring of Brazilian democratic institutions on social networking and to character the monitorial comportment from expressions of citizens to institutions’ posts in this environment of digital interaction. Beyond measuring of volume and of the intensity of digital civic monitoring, we seek to identify which are the reasons express in comments’ content made on these posts and to compare such characteristic by the level of institutionalization of institutions, were being selected relevant organizations for the Brazilian democracy, on public and political spheres, of the State and of the society. Empirically, it is considered more than 27 million comments made by citizens on 61 thousand posts of 12 institutions on Facebook, over the course of a year. The results indicate that there is not a big volume of monitoring on this platform since only 2% of comments total were considered monitories within the parameters established for to enable the analysis. In addition, the results showed the level of institutionalization is relevant in this comportment, considering that representatives of the politic sphere are, comparably, more monitored, especially the political parties. Furthermore, the thesis presents a typology of monitory expressions on comments. When citizens are monitoring, commenting for those institutions on Facebook, they tend to underpin that expressions based on institutional functions, insults, issues, political values, and online performance.

The digital environment creates new opportunities for citizen political participation. Among these, the monitoring of political and economic power centers stands out. This includes public scrutiny of the management of public funds and the activities of the public and economic systems, thus denouncing dysfunctional features. This article aims to describe, differentiate, and classify the various forms that monitoring can take in current democracies. The results indicate that three major monitoring fields exist: governmental monitoring, shared monitoring, and civic monitoring. This study focuses on the last by specifying its four types: watchdog function, extraction and filtration of secret information, expansion of issues through alternative journalism, and extension of representation beyond parliaments.

Representative democratic systems seem to be following divergent trends in recent times. On the one hand, there are certain signs of decline such as the fall in voter turnout or the increased distance between politicians and citizens. On the other hand, on occasions the public seems to be acquiring a greater political role as a result of a new media landscape that offers new opportunities for political participation. These trends have led to different interpretations of the present situation of democracy: one pointing to the decline of democracy and the other to a democratic transformation; two contrasting ways of understanding the present that challenge us to ask which of the two comes closest to providing an accurate picture of the architecture of democracy today. This paper will attempt to resolve this question by paying particular attention to the role of the new media galaxy in promoting new forms of citizens’ participation