How is democracy working out in Arab spring countries or Eastern European countries? Most westerners have it wrong where they think Democracy --> Economic prosperity, where in fact it's quite the opposite. Economic prosperity --> Strong government --> Democracy. If you don't have a strong state, Democracy (or any political system) just leads to widespread corruption.

If you're interested in learning more about how China, America, UK, etc were able to rise to power, I recommend checking out this paper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-00...