If you haven't seen them, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are excellent (up to a point?) explorations of the agency issues between a permanent civil service and an ephemeral political leadership. (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abba_Eban#Family )

> whereas we mask it with a thin layer of democracy

I understand China has a yearly meeting where a few thousand regionally elected delegates get together and vote on various national proposals for the year to come...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People%27s_Congress

http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Special_12_2/index.ht...