Ben Worthy and Stefani Langehennig discuss their Leverhulme funded project on monitory democracy. The blog outlines some of the key implications for scrutiny of political representatives and the manner in which monitoring mechanisms are used in the arena of democratic conflict.
Over the last decade a host of new formal and informal ‘political observatories’ watch and hold government and public bodies to account. As a result, ‘Monitory democracy’ theory argues that democracy has become less about voting and more about continuous surveillance, as a rolling series of transparency mechanisms constantly open up new areas of public life to scrutiny and challenge. Monitory ideas, developed by thinkers such as Michael Schudson and John Keane, sit alongside other ‘conflictual’ theories of democracy, such as Rosanvallon’s conception of ‘counter-democracy’, or Mouffe’s ‘agonistic pluralism’.
Our new Leverhulme project looks how and if new data sources and web platforms have made it easier to monitor Parliament and its members. Does this new layer of ‘surveillance’ and ‘monitoring’ at Westminster change how democracy works? How does it effect the watched and the watching?
These new ‘power-monitoring institutions’ draw on a growing armoury of low cost transparency tools. Some are legal instruments, such as the Freedom of Information Act 2000, while others are online innovations, provided by Parliament’s data service or third party sites such as Public Whip or Theyworkforyou.com (TWFY). Together they create a flow of data, so that voters and others can easily see at the push of a button everything from voting records to expenses and register of interests-even to who has changed wikipedia entries.
We can get some sense of the different groups doing the watching. To take the example of voting data, journalists and campaigners often use it as a short cut or signal to understand an MPs’ position on an issue or their general outlook, especially if they suddenly rise to prominence. Local and regional papers use it as local or connective tool, running stories on how local MPs voted in controversial subjects. Others use it more politically or reputationally to assess or even damage an MPs’ image, showing them up to be a champion, a hypocrite or inconsistent.
The other data can be used in similarly creative ways. Expenses and attendance can be used as a way of understanding if MPs or peers are most active or value for money, and is used as a kind of test of their probity. Their register of interest can be used to get a sense of who is funding them or what money they are making from outside (see the Boris Johnson JCB nexus here).
Some see the new flow of data as simply disruptive, providing ammunition for trolls and opponents. Some are concerned it misrepresents members; while attendance data can be easily used to create lists of lazy MPs, deeper analysis reveals that MPs further from London have to represent in different ways. What all this means to voters may depend on where they stand-does Corbyn’s rebellious past make him a ‘Socialist hardliner who voted against Labour more times than David Cameron’ or prove he has been ‘on the right side of history for 30 years’?
So far, the new data has driven some concrete changes. The misinterpretation of attendance and voting data has fed into reform of proxy voting and baby leave. As Luciana Berger pointed out:
The website TheyWorkForYou.com currently registers the fact that I have voted in just 16.51% of votes in the past year. I have, though, been in Parliament, but have just gone home to look after my child at the end of the day.
Elsewhere, data on the attendance and expenses of peers has been used to push for reform of the House of Lords. Monitoring can help activate other tools of accountability, as two of the three uses of the new UK Recall Act 2015 were driven by exposure of expenses and register of interests respectively. Dominic Grieve’s voting record was mentioned when parts of his local party attempted to remove him, while Diana Johnson MP faced claims of past voting behaviour on the NHS in her trigger ballot battle.
Exactly how monitory democracy works in the case of Westminster is unclear. To have an effect on MPs, monitoring requires a certain response from those being monitored. Yet MPs have always been watched and, as Pitkin famously pointed out, their behaviour has always been ‘quasi performative’. Voting data, for example, has always been a cause of concern for members of legislatures, who fear what a few well informed voters obsessed with an issue could do. Here exactly who is doing the watching could be crucial. An MP would be far more concerned if their local party or very strong supporters were critical than, for example, their local opponents.
What makes monitoring more uncertain is there are long chains of watchers, who are hard to trace. Users of Theyworkforyou are a very diverse bunch, from journalists, perhaps looking for inconsistency or rebellion, to activists focusing on one issue, or MPs themselves, checking their own or others’ records. How do these different layers of use and interpretation play out or spread through the media and social networks?
In addition, the exact outcomes are rather hazy-Keane argues monitory democracy creates a kind of continuous ‘accountability’, through exposure or anticipated reactions, as well as the creation of ‘humility’ and limits on political behaviour. There has also been some challenge to the idea it is ‘continuous’ but instead is only ‘good enough’, like parents at a swimming pool rather than eternal vigilance. It may also have unexpected effects, especially with a complex body like Westminster. ‘Visibility’ one important study argued ‘sometimes conceals’ for example, the ‘real facts’ of how an organisation functions, such as relationships, networks, skills and ‘invisible processes’. Monitoring can also, by Keane’s admission, be used to delegitimise and ‘muck rake’.
Finally, one major area left unclear is the central idea of representation-what does the rise of monitory democracy, used potentially by unrepresentative groups, mean for who, or how an institution represents?
The project aims to find an alternative way of looking at the effects of monitory democracy, to think about how greater transparency can cause political conflict. Schnattschneider famously argued that conflict is inherent in democracy. Attempts at exposure or closure always ‘create a chain reaction’ and struggle over what is opened up and what stays closed, as seen with the MPs’ expenses scandal. Monitory democracy constantly exposes lines of democratic conflict and can kick start new spirals of battles, mobilising and involvement. The question is what all this conflict means for how we think about and practice democracy.
If you have used Parliament data, please help us by filling in our short survey https://bbk.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/parliament-data-user-survey
Dr Ben Worthy is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck University of London
Dr Stefani Langehennig is a researcher in public policy at Birbeck University of London and ICF