Singapore might be a flawed democracy, but it still is one. The ruling party does fear losing vote share in elections and adapts its policies to win public support (e.g. in the 2011 elections when the opposition won 40% of the vote).
Even Singapore's founder/dictator said that Singapore style government wont work in huge country like India with its different religions, languages, cultures etc.
I do know about Singapore. Feel free to point out another 5 examples from the entire history of mankind, all 5000 years of it, all across the world.
Oh, to clarify, I want a longer time frame. I want a autocratic regime which didn't hit the "Dumbo peak" within 1 century, +/- 20 years. Heck, even Singapore doesn't qualify, their system has been up for only about 60 years. They still have about as many years to hit a dud.
This is a silly argument. Every regime has an arch and succumbs to corruption eventually. "Works for a while" describes every regime in history of mankind.
Why would it be silly? The whole point of democracy is to prevent that decay...
Or are you assuming that democracy naturally devolves into a corrupt regime? I doubt it. It seems to be the exact opposite: stable, long term democracies are the most resilient ones.
>Or are you assuming that democracy naturally devolves into a corrupt regime?
All governments regardless of their nature or intent devolve into corrupt regimes over time. The nature of government - authority through a monopoly on violence and coercive taxation - makes corruption, authoritarianism and collapse inevitable.
But what happens when your children inherit the garden, or their children? Maybe after a couple of generations, they no longer think a garden is worth the effort, and don't bother pulling the weeds. Maybe they hire someone to manage the garden for them, or maybe they just pave the whole thing over altogether.
Checks and balances only work when both the people insist on them and the government recognizes them. But in a democracy, people can be convinced to vote against their own interests, to vote out checks and balances or vote in autocrats or extremists, or to simply not care to stop power concentrating or collaborating where it shouldn't.
How many long term democracies are there? If you mean US and not see corruption (which is only getting worse) then you are paying very poor attention. The US is an oligarchy at best and a fascist state (and no I do not mean Trump) at worst.
Democracies are not only direct, they're also representative. Also, no plan survives contact with the enemy, I'm not talking about Utopia here. The US is absolutely a democracy, as one manifests itself in real life. So is the UK, France, the Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc.
All of which are young. Saying singapore does not count while they do is cherry picking. The US if you count the time of slaves and when only white men could vote as a democracy is the oldest and arguably one of the most devolved and corrupted. So your argument for better stability is weak. The case for the US such as it is to be in its last days is quite strong.