huonian: "The greatest problem with democracy at the moment is the level of cynicism about all things political. Scepticism is healthy, but cynicism says more about the cynic than about the intended target. All this cynicism, and the ruthless scrutiny of politicians' private lives, makes it difficult for all parties to attract good candidates. And some dud candidates get elected and become dud MPs"

Oh yes, "cynicism", "socialism", just denounce the voice of dissent with loaded terms that save you the bother of thinking it through or thinking at all! Do you have any specific argument against John Ton's polemic, or mine?
I'm not pushing socialism--which has also shown itself prey to human corruption. Democracy stands condemned a spectacular failure as human government; it presides over nothing but unconscionable glut, all the while congratulating itself on the enlightenment tenets with which it completes its self-agrandising toilette.
Apart from that, democracy's a wheeze!

Our present democracies have been ruined by letting nations like America, and Britain before it, try to dominate the whole world, which unfortunately Obama is trying to do.

It is certainly why the strongly democratic Nordic nations have given America away.

Well now, I have left out dear cousin Britain once again, forgetting the singular non-democratic determination of Tony Blair with our Johnny Howard strongly by his side.

Must say that Obama pipes too much about America being the true world democratic example, when he must know she is not.

George W Bush truly proved it in the negative, whenever he had Condoleeza Rice pretty well running the whole global show -

with tiny Israel's Netanyahu happily clapping his hands behind the scenes.

The only advantage of democracy is that it allows people to learn from their mistakes. Yes, it would be nice to have a more responsive democracy, because that way we could learn faster, but we are making slow progress. Economic management has now become a no-brainer -- all it takes is a bit of political will -- and foreign military adventures are getting less attractive all the time, so hopefully our politicians will now have the time to direct a little attention to making the system more efficient and generating more happiness.

Democracy has proven the best of all political systems for consumerism. It does not matter to the proponents that they're discriminating against many in their selfish quest & in the process lowering the standard of mentality with increased incompetent education. Yes, democracy is great just ask any of those whose country has been swamped by outsiders. I think Australia will reach its second milestone in about 2020. Now, having stated that, I actually AM in favour of mixing society but this mix should be via acceptance not of rejection & attempting to domineer the host society. Unfortunately, Democracy is not terminally ill, with the backing of consumerism it flourishes like a Cancer.

I'm starting to think a LOT of westerners really have no idea what "democracy" actually implies- and just generally trying to gauge as a capitalist system with corporate businessmen where politicians try to get voted (eg USA).

Ironically, the most basic definition from a dictionary would probably be enough...

But because I'm so generous, I'll tell you now that a 'democracy' is simply any system of governance where the public has some kind of practical authority over the government in some way (able to vote for politicians, lobby and vote on policies)- and there are considerably different systems- including degrees of democracy, or even whether government is voting a single person or many.

My reason for writing this article was in part prompted by Peter Mair's excellent review of Martin Bell's book " A Very BritishRevolution: The Expenses Scandal and How to Save our Democracy." (London Review of Books 25 Feb 2010) Mair, in his review looks at other democracies and finds the picture equally bleak. People are deserting the major parties in favour of independents and smaller parties in the hope of getting a set of politicians in parliament who at least have the interests of the country as a whole at heart.
I am not sure it can be done but I believe a starting point would be to set out a set of principles that define what governments, regardless of their ideology, are required to deliver.
I suspect that will never happen because it is simply too hard.