[throwaway552231]

Has it ever worked in that order? It seems like most current democratic countries first cleaned up the country and then introduced a democratic government. I’m thinking of recent democratic countries in Asia, like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Or if they did start with a democratic government, to limit the voting to certain groups, like the US, Canada, and Australia did before universal suffrage.

Are there any successful countries that haven’t “cleaned up” first but introduced universal democracy?

[lkbm]

Rulers derive power from other people. Your first job is to keep the people keeping you in power happy. Fail that, and you'll be replaced by someone else.

Democracy means shifting it from a small number of people keeping you in power to all of the people. It's not easy.

CGPGray did a great video on this model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (Based on The Dictators Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.