It’s a delicate plant, that needs the gardening skills of all of us.

Many eyes in the world are turned towards the United States, as the Bush presidency draws to a close, and as the struggle for his succession heats up. Elections elsewhere also grab the headlines: Kenya, Thailand, Russia... Everyone wants to claim to be democratic – even the world’s least democratic régimes like to put the word in their official names. ‘It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried,’ Sir Winston Churchill commented.

Churchill’s old sparring partner, the playwright George Bernard Shaw sardonically noted that ‘Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve’. But Churchill’s successor as British Prime Minister at the end of World War II, Clement Atlee, added, ‘it is only effective if you can stop people talking’. Democracy is clearly a delicate plant that needs very careful watering and considerable gardening skills. As all gardeners know, plants don’t grow faster when you pull on them!

Democracy has not always had such a good press – for long it was associated with mob-rule. Ordinary uneducated people couldn’t be trusted to make important decisions. But there does seem to be a slowly rising tide of greater freedoms, greater respect for human rights –and greater inclusion of people in their own governance. And surely, this is the root issue: giving people a sense that they take part in making the important decisions that affect their lives, and can help shape the course for the future of their societies.

How refreshing it would be if we got away from the idea that our own perfect model needs just to be exported better, to a common search for this difficult ideal of respect and inclusion, where no-one seems yet to represent perfection. Voter apathy is an important issue in many ‘democracies’. Here in Geneva where I live, an elected politician who has the votes of 20% of the electors is doing really well. Minorities of militants weigh far more than their numbers. And it’s true that we are often called to give our opinions on issues we may not really understand. This month we vote nationally on easing taxes to help small businesses, restricting flight rules for the Swiss Air Force, so that they make less noise, and at the same time, in our Canton, to ban smoking in all public closed spaces, and certain dangerous races of dogs, as well as on a proposal to make all public transport free.

In many democracies, there are concerns about the power of money, to distort and manipulate. Then there is the power of lobbies, often well hidden from the public eye. In the US – and elsewhere – the electoral boundaries can be decided by partisan state assemblies. Votes can carry very different weights depending on where you live.

Much depends on the un-exciting ‘rule of law’. But as Shaw was hinting, democracy depends on the qualities and commitments of its citizens. On all of us. On ethical values of respect for opponents, and notably for minorities. All too often, ‘democrats’ use the language of war and struggle – and then express surprise when they are taken at their word.

Twenty-three centuries ago, Aristotle wrote: ‘If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.’ I like that note of challenge to ‘share to the utmost’.