b/b
In my mind, but sadly not in my words, the democratic pole means stable democracies with build in protection for minorities, usually in the form of constitutional protections of individual rights, or Charters/Bills of Rights that legally protect minorities from majority prejudices.

When these are lacking, democracies tend to fail; and when they are lacking in nascent democracies in pluralistic nations (ethnic or religious diversity in particular), the failures can be spectacular. Witness, Middle East and Africa.

Tangentially, I fault our civics classes in stable western democracies for those nascent failures. Nascent democracies look to established democracies for guidance, and we tell them a free press and free and fair elections is all that is necessary. We do not recognize the importance of minority protections in the stability of our own systems. More fully, the struggle for those protections, is often at the core of our histories?