En bra beskrivning av de olika delar som omfattas av ämnet demokrati är den som används av democracyweb.
Från avsnittet om "Free, fair and regular elections" är det fetmarkerade avsnittet intressant med tanke på pågående diskussioner på MPR.
"The Insufficiency and Abuse of Elections
Elections are the sine qua non of democracy. But dictatorships make evident the notion that elections alone cannot establish or sustain democracy. Without democracy's other essential elements—consent of the governed, constitutional limits, the protection of human and minority rights, accountability and transparency, a multiple party system, economic freedom, and the rule of law (Sections 1 and 3–12)—elections cannot guarantee that freedom will be achieved.
Where democratic institutions are weak, elections are easily used by violent and dictatorial political groups to manipulate the will of the people and seize control of the government. During the 1930s in Germany, for instance, Adolf Hitler rose to power in the Weimar government through elections and then assumed complete control through intimidation and thuggery. Today, in the context of political instability, elections have validated the militant Islamist group Hamas, which has won control of the Palestinian legislature but has yet to recognize the state of Israel and abandon violence as a weapon of resistance. Neither result fulfills democratic principles to any degree. In these cases, elections were carried out in conditions where democracy was either being undermined or did not exist.
Can elections ever legitimate a dictatorship or revolutionary violence? The terrible consequences of the Nazi regime alone make clear that the answer must be no. Dictatorships claiming to hold genuine elections manipulate and distort them instead, which imposes fraudulent results that create fictitious consent. Democracy is a liberal political system based on freedom; its main vehicle cannot legitimately be used to impose tyranny or foment violence (as in Palestine and Iraq). In such instances, elections are not signs of democracy, but rather serve as a facade to mask authoritarian political structures."
Det här kanske skulle reflekteras över en del innan man accepterar Thaksin som någon demokrativän.