I've bumped into this recently with SE Asian politics. The West has tried to get SE Asia to be democratic for decades. But SE Asians have, almost uniformly, rej

I've bumped into this recently with SE Asian politics. The West has tried to get SE Asia to be democratic for decades. But SE Asians have, almost uniformly, rejected democracy and opted for variations on monarchies, communist autocracies, military juntas, and "elected" dictators. At what point do we accept that SE Asians don't want to have democratic governments, and just let them do their thing? OR do we never accept that, of any culture, and keep pushing them to be democratic because it's "better"?