> "The chance of making progress toward real democracy is often not seen as worth the risk for external parties (especially external elites); locals, of course, may have different calculus. "
That's a very true observation but that doesn't mean that elites will always get their way and prevail over the masses.
The masses can sometimes secure victories at their expense, albeit short-lived in most cases, and force them to change their mind and adopt their ideas.
The usual overt basis for complaints that elections are insufficient is that they don't end up as ballot-box-only democracy, but that they instead they often end up as one person, one vote, one time -- followed by tyrannical strongman rule.
OTOH, that's clearly not generally worse than just leaving existing tyrannical strongmen in place. I think the real concern is that locally popular strongmen buoyed by such a one-time election, in the short term, are more likely to have the domestic support to cause problems for neighbors and outsiders, while the often-unpopular existing strongmen are frequently hobbled in their ability to cause external problems by the needs to deal -- whether through active repression or ongoing negotiation and mollification -- with unruly internal factions. (Another is that external elites often have connections and established ways of working with the existing strongmen.)
The chance of making progress toward real democracy is often not seen as worth the risk for external parties (especially external elites); locals, of course, may have different calculus.