Descent Data and Absolute Kan Extensions

The fundamental construction underlying descent theory, the lax descent category, comes with a functor that forgets the descent data. We prove that, in any $2$-category $\mathfrak{A}$ with lax descent objects, the forgetful morphisms create all Kan extensions that are preserved by certain morphisms. As a consequence, in the case $\mathfrak{A} = \mathsf{Cat}$, we get a monadicity theorem which says that a right adjoint functor is monadic if and only if it is, up to the composition with an equivalence, (naturally isomorphic to) a functor that forgets descent data. In particular, within the classical context of descent theory, we show that, in a fibred category, the forgetful functor between the category of internal actions of a precategory $a$ and the category of internal actions of the underlying discrete precategory is monadic if and only if it has a left adjoint. More particularly, this shows that one of the implications of the celebrated Benabou-Roubaud theorem does not depend on the so called Beck-Chevalley condition. Namely, we prove that, in indexed categories, whenever an effective descent morphism induces a right adjoint functor, the induced functor is monadic.