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. Specifically, the paper focuses on the challenges of balancing multiple political values, bringing politicians and researchers together, integrating monitoring efforts, and resolving measurement problems. Emphasis is placed on the importance of tackling these complex issues and hence on deepening the consensus that has emerged regarding the monitoring of democracy.