A functional democracy is related to the respect for reason - the ability to reason why things should be a certain way, and have one's arguments be respected ev

A functional democracy is related to the respect for reason - the ability to reason why things should be a certain way, and have one's arguments be respected even if they are counterintuitive. If the media markets are advanced enough to trump reason, or if the culture is such that they are still driven too much by superstitions and religion, then functional democracy will have a really tough time taking hold.