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But then, doesn't this depend on how one defines "democracy," and which element of it is essential to "national success in the modern age"?
For example, the Global State of democracy Initiative comes to mind, particularly their diagram of their conceptual framework. I note that "responsiveness to public opinion" would mostly fall under portions of one branch of four — "Representation" — and maybe the "electoral participation" subheading of the "Participation" branch; together, this is only a small portion of the framework. Further, there's "Judicial Independence" under the "Rule of Law" branch pushing in the opposite direction.
Or look at the well-used "democracy scores" criticized here, here, and here. The sort of definitions of "democracy" wherein Fidesz winning straight majorities of the electorate is a lack of democracy. Wherein the voters getting what they want is "populism," which is bad and a grave threat to Our Democracy — after all, "populism" lead to Hitler. (As a podcaster I listen to put it, the core question so much of our modern society and "leadership" perpetually asks about any issue or choice is "What Would Hitler Do?" — so as to automatically select the opposite choice. "Reversed stupidity is not intelligence," sure, but is "reversed evil" good?)
People talk about democracy being about "consent of the governed," but, as people since at least Lysander Spooner have been pointing out, this ends up relying on very strained and atypical definitions of consent. I once pointed out somewhere online (I don't remember where or when) what happens when you compare "consent" in the "consent of the governed" meaning with "consent" in modern "affirmative consent" ethics; what happens when you transpose the definition from one context to the other, in either direction.
Or, one can talk about "representative government." But what does it mean to "represent" someone — particularly to "represent" and "empower" someone who cannot act themselves, but require you to exercise power on their behalf. What makes a parent or legal guardian a good representative of a child, a mental patient, a senile elder? One who stuffs their Alzheimer-afflicted mother into a cheap nursing home and drains her accounts to spend on oneself is not "a good representative." But, the overly-permissive parent who lets their kids have chocolate cake for breakfast is also not "a good representative" — in not doing the hard, uncomfortable work of saying "no" and setting boundaries, they are, in their own way, putting their own interests ahead of their children's best interests as well.
Hence, that Rousseau-citing essay I keep coming back to, wherein, since the Iron Law of Oligarchy ensures an elite ruling class, the only question is whether that ruling class acts in their own interest — whether via direct exploitation of the masses, or by populist pandering to the whims of the mob — or they act for the best interests of society as a whole — the "general will" — whether the electorate vote for it or not; and that "democracy" is best defined as the latter, as distinct from the "non-democratic" former.
Linguistic descriptivism vs. prescriptivism. One can complain about the use of "literally" as an intensifier, and yet the linguistic shift continues (as it did long, long ago for the word "very," with a remnant of the original meaning lingering in the adjectival usage). It seems to me that more and more people — particularly influential ones — define "democracy" as something more along the lines of the above — or even just 'democracy is when the correct people are in charge' — wherein "responsiveness to public opinion" is a relatively minor component at best.
I should really write a longer effortpost on this, since I've heard you and several others use the term "oligarchy" this way. This line of thinking is common enough on this forum that it deserves a dedicated response. Until I get around to that, I'll type out something briefer.
I think you're warping the term "oligarchy" in a similar way that leftists have warped the term "racism". I feel it's not motivated out of a desire to be maximally descriptive to people unfamiliar with the ideas, but rather it's being used to smuggle in political arguments through wordplay. In short, it's the noncentral fallacy, i.e. the thing Scott once described in this article.
I agree there are issues with scoring democracy. But the response shouldn't be to turn around and declare that nothing short of 1:1 representation of popular-request:elite-policymaking is a "democracy", and that anything which falls short is an "oligarchy". That's setting up an impossible standard for democracy, and furthermore is not how average people would use or understand the term. There's a big difference in how much popular will impacts policy in democracies like the US or Germany, vs how much it does in Russia or China. Meaningful voting for which politicians get in power is one of the best ways to ensure popular will remains important.
On some of your specific points:
Fidesz winning fair elections is democracy working correctly, but Fidesz can do things that then hurt democracy. Heck, this can even happen without enacting specific policies simply by breaking norms. I'm not an expert on Hungarian politics so I won't use examples from there. Instead I'll point to something like J6, which absolutely tore at the fabric of American democracy. It didn't do that because of any direct outcomes (Trump was not kept in power), but the fact that many on the right excused Trump's behavior or even celebrated it means other more competent right-wing politicians could are more incentivized to contemplate an actual coup in the future.
Modern definitions of "consent" in sexual contexts are completely screwed up, and I criticize them as much as I criticize anything else. They shouldn't be the basis of broader definitions of democracy... or anything really.
The people who do this are hacks who abuse words to try and gain leverage over the instruments of power. Pushing for the "correct" people or "correct" policies inevitably degenerates into pushing for "things that help the leaders themselves the most". The correct response is to call out the people who hold this opinion for their shortsightedness, not argue that the only thing that can stop a dictatorship of the left is a dictatorship by the right as many people on this site do.
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