Vol. 15 No. 29 (2024): Continuities and Transformations in Forms of Collective Action
Articles

Between Cooptation and Surveillance: Varieties of Civic Monitoring in Spain

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  • Alessandra Lo Piccolo
Alessandra Lo Piccolo
University of Bologna
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-15498

Published 2024-07-23

Keywords

  • civic monitoring,
  • civil society organizations,
  • hybridization,
  • Spain,
  • crisis

How to Cite

Lo Piccolo, A. (2024). Between Cooptation and Surveillance: Varieties of Civic Monitoring in Spain. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 15(29), 63–74. https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-15498

Copyright (c) 2024 Alessandra Lo Piccolo

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Civic monitoring is a democratic practice that allows citizens to hold accountable powerholders and enhance the accountability of democratic systems. To date, democratic theorists and collective action scholars have stressed the relevance of monitoring by NGOs, social movement organizations, and alternative media to increase civil society’s watchdog potential, filter publicly relevant information, and ensure the inclusion of new voices and the representation of new instances in democratic arenas. However, little is known about how such diverse collective actors leverage monitoring practices, particularly in interaction with monitored actors and their constituencies. Focusing on the Spanish case (2011-2021), often considered a prominent example of monitory democracy, the study employs Situational Analysis and builds on semi-structured interviews and document analysis to discuss differences within the Spanish monitoring field. The results contribute to ongoing discussions on the hybridization of civic efforts and classifications of civic monitoring initiatives.

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