Merely holding elections doesn’t mean you have a “democracy.” In the US it’s taken for granted that promises made by the winning presidential candidate will be ignored-The End of the Transition Paradigm, Jan. 2002, Journal of Democracy

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This article describing erroneous assumptions about countries supposedly “transitioning” to democracy also applies to the US where elites have “transitioned” the US away from democracy to dictatorship. Holding elections doesn’t mean you have “democracy.” In the US it’s taken for granted that promises made by the winning presidential candidate will be ignored. 

Jan. 2002, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,“ Journal of Democracy, Thomas Carothers 

(page 15): “The third assumption of the transition paradigm—the notion that achieving regular, genuine elections will not only confer democratic legitimacy on new governments but continuously deepen political participation and democratic accountability—has often come up short. In many “transitional countries,” reasonably regular, genuine elections are held but political participation beyond voting remains shallow and governmental accountability is weak. The wide gulf between political elites and citizens in many of these countries turns out to be rooted in structural conditions, such as the concentration of wealth or certain sociocultural traditions, that elections themselves do not overcome. It is also striking how often electoral competition does little to stimulate the renovation or development of political parties.”…



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