>This gives rise to the sense that democracy, at least in part, may be a deception that usefully provides people the illusion of a voice for change, while at th

>This gives rise to the sense that democracy, at least in part, may be a deception that usefully provides people the illusion of a voice for change, while at the same time protecting the governing system by ensuring people do not seek more disruptive methods to alter it. As Churchill said, "democracy is the worst form of government, except all others". Are there elements in democracies that entrench the status quo? Of course, especially in countries like the UK and the US with single member district, first past the post systems that favor huge parties that never change. Here we have a pretty complex party list based system that is often critiqued as "too difficult to understand for the average voter", but when people want to change who rules the country they have more than 1 viable choice of opposition. You may say, nah, it is not about the system of voting, duopoly is a feature of "mature" democracies that have been around for 400 years. To which I'll give an example of Poland where the lower chamber of parliament (Sejm) is voted for party lists proportionally and it always has a mix of many parties, and the upper chamber (Senat) that uses the classic "first past the post" system and in the senate 2 major parties(the biggest party and the current biggest opposition party) always get 95%+ of the seats.