Here's something interesting: various Chinese think tanks wonder publicly about if, and when their country will transition to democracy. (Yes, they can get away with this - the unwritten rule is that they can't say "China should become a democracy in the next 5 years" but discussions of longer time periods are not considered a threat).
A lot of the left-leaning think tanks believe China should gradually become more democratic, building from the village elections they have now to city, province and ultimately national elections.
Some of the right-leaning think tanks have a more original idea - China remains a one-party state, but with increasingly sophisticated methods of soliciting public opinion. Basically technocracy.
I think the EU is converging on the same system of government from a different direction.
I'm not saying technocracy is a wonderful system of government either, but it won't be hard to do a better job than democracy.
Pretty much everything bad people have predicted about democracy has come to pass:
- many people will vote on ethnic/tribal lines (true even in the US)
- people's voting patterns will be mainly determined by the media, making the media and whoever controls it extraordinarily powerful (if you're Chomsky, this is the corporations, if you're UKIP, this is the "metropolitan liberal elite" - actually, they're both right).
- the idea of having rotating politicians managing a permanent civil service is insanely impractical, is not implemented by any non-governmental organisation, and has had the entirely predictable result that the civil service pretty much does what it wants regardless of who is in power.
- eventually the population realise they can vote themselves largesse out of the treasury. This is the equivalent of injecting smack for polities; it's insanely addictive, it's incredibly painful for them to quit, and it will probably eventually kill them.
- it doesn't even really give a voice to voters. Seriously, all your opinions and preferences are reduced to 1 bit of information every election cycle? And in practice its less than that, because you probably live in a non-swing region, or your preferences are highly predictable (eg, in information theoretic terms, an urban highly-educated media professional who votes left-wing probably only gives you about 0.2 bits of information, because you knew they were gonna vote left-wing anyway).
Something like Singapore is one good example of what a well-managed non-democratic state can look like. (INB4 caning: OK, corporal punishment isn't very nice, but neither are most criminals, and since Singapore has a low crime rate its "draconian" law enforcement leads to less overall suffering than, say, the American policy of placing two million people in rape-infested concentration camps. Free speech? You noticed how Jezebel and similar outlets have started threatening the employment of people who say things they don't like? I used to be a lot more libertarian, but I'm seriously coming around to the idea that people have more practical freedom in an orderly state than a libertine one).
People here interested in this stuff should seriously read Moldbug if they haven't already: http://moldbuggery.blogspot.co.uk (start with "The Case Against Democracy: Ten Red Pill" and then maybe move to the "Open Letter" series).