Most Western countries have now been practising democracy for around 200 years, some for longer.
None of the versions are ideal.
Which are thought to work better often seems to depend on personal bias.
Objective criteria include percentage of population with a healthy standard of living, plus a balance of personal freedom and responsibility versus civic and social duty, and the fewest number of people falling through the cracks.
An ideal political system is not possible.
Any whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and,
since no human is without faults or flaws,
every system we invent will be flawed by our misbehaviours and mistakes.
The best we can do is to create checks and balances.
One of these is the news media. It should be mandated that each outlet must show all sides of issues and publish the views of relevant experts. Media should pay heavy penalties for proven lies or omissions, and worse if these are proven to be deliberate or part of a systemic pattern. Media monopolies should be broken apart and forbidden from mergers.
Most democracies already have several checks but need more independent investigative bodies, paid by the public purse, whose job is to prosecute and expose corruption in any and all political, public, corporate systems, and to mandate improvements to legislation. In some cases, this might require referenda for changes to constitutions.
According to history, autocracy is guaranteed to be far worse. Power concentrated in one person or group for too long leads to abuse of power. Although a benign dictator is theoretically possible, I don't know of even one that has ever existed.
We do need leaders in emergencies, but the choice must depend on expertise and the job should end as soon as the emergency passes.
