a form of government that was first implemented in the United States and gradually adopted by many other countries

Only a US citizen can write things like that. I wouldn't even know where to start. Slavery ? Indian affairs ? The Astrodom ?

As to the EU nations (not "governments"), I suppose the smaller ones (Nordic) may be closer to this ideal than the larger ones.

Polyarchy and its procedures by itself may be insufficient for achieving full democracy. For example, poor people may be unable to participate in the political process.

When, in the 1940s, Joseph Schumpeter argued that ordinary citizens should limit their participation in a democracy to electing its leaders, he was effectively arguing for polyarchy. This contrasts with the view presented in the eighteenth century by Rousseau, that the health of a polity depended on active citizen involvement in all aspects of governance. According to Schumpeter, massive political participation is regarded as undesirable and even dangerous. Schumpeter thought that the electoral masses are incapable of political participation other than voting for their leaders. Most political issues are so remote from the daily lives of ordinary people, that they can not make sound judgements about opinions, policies and ideologies.

In Preface to Democratic Theory (1956) Dahl argues that an increase in citizen political involvement may not always be beneficial for polyarchy. An increase in the political participation of members of "lower" socioeconomic classes, for example, could reduce the support for the basic norms of polyarchy, because members of those classes are more pre-disposed to be authoritarian-minded.

In a discussion of contemporary British foreign policy, Mark Curtis stated that "Polyarchy is generally what British leaders mean when they speak of promoting 'democracy' abroad. This is a system in which a small group actually rules and mass participation is confined to choosing leaders in elections managed by competing elites."

Sure, European countries are polyarchies. France is (rule by enarques or polytechniciens). The Low Countries are (see pillarisation). Spain, Germany, Italy, are as well (they have a substrate of corporatist structures in economic decision-making). And so on.

The EU itself is a polyarchy (the "democratic deficit").

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

William I. Robinson, Ph.D.
A portion of it:

Organic intellectuals and U.S. policymakers... insist that polyarchy must go hand in hand with neoliberal global capitalism. If there is no free market capitalism there is no democracy. That in order to be democratic, one must be capitalist. And not any capitalist but neoliberal capitalism. Global Capitalism. And so normal society is capitalist society and any other vision is anti democratic heresy. Numerous State Department and other U.S. Government pronouncements declare explicitly that promoting democracy or promoting free market capitalism, or neoliberalism, are complementary, a singular process in U.S. foreign policy, now with the cliché, market democracy or pre market democracy. And indeed, central to U.S. polyarchy promotion is supporting those business groups, political and civic organizations in intervened countries that favor neoliberal reform, and capitalist globalization, and marginalizing those groups who oppose it.

Who is associated with NACLA.

Rutherfordian ------------------------------ RDRutherford