If by modern you mean everything for the past 200 years as opposed to Athens, sure. Democracy is only useful in small areas where people know their neighbors and for specific purposes - maybe like voting a representative to town council that you see every Sunday at church - not for deciding on everything across an empire. At that point the shadowy figures behind the scenes who always ran things will keep running things, but use Democracy as a form of consensus manufacturing. It's not a mistake. It's by design.
If by modern you mean everything for the past 200 years as opposed to Athens, sure. Democracy is only useful in small areas where people know their neighbors and for specific purposes - maybe like voting a representative to town council that you see every Sunday at church - not for deciding on everything across an empire. At that point the shadowy figures behind the scenes who always ran things will keep running things, but use Democracy as a form of consensus manufacturing. It's not a mistake. It's by design.