Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Democracies, despite their differences, all need these things to be classified as democracies: a society free from violence; equality for all; and political power in the hands of the people.

The founding fathers of the US tried to ensure this by using referendums, a tool that recalls President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" and to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms."

Referendums are a general vote by the electorate on a single political issue.

The current US election campaign illustrates exactly all the pluses and minuses of this particular brand of Western democracy.

Things so far have moved kaleidoscopically fast. Most recently, despite the WikiLeaks publication of materials that have discredited Hillary Clinton, the release of video containing Trump's offensive comments about women by CNN has resulted in Clinton pulling ahead in the polls.

But that is not because the politically-divided nation found compromise through their democracy.

The Wikileaks material didn't harm Clinton. If anything, the Democratic Party will use these materials to apply pressure on Clinton if she gets into office.          

On the other hand, it will be very difficult for Trump to recover from this most recent development. The Republican Party sees the scandal as a point of no return for Trump, and is considering changing candidates.

According to The Washington Post on October 6, "he spent much of his time since Friday night hunkered down with his most loyal advisers, refusing to accept or recognize the full reality of what was happening outside."

Does this reflect the wills of the electorate? Many citizens understand that Clinton is far from a perfect candidate, but feel Trump would be much, much worse as president.

In reality, US voters are not participating in a representative democracy, but rather an "elective aristocracy." The last round of debates saw many questions raised by the public untouched and unaddressed.

Instead, both presidential hopefuls worried themselves not about the actual needs of voters, but focused their attention on making personal attacks and parrying their rival's blows.

So, is it possible for citizens to make a politically responsible choice that will benefit the whole nation?

Americans, like Europeans, clearly understand the limits of their political power and that their needs will not be fully satisfied by the incoming president, whomever he or she is.

The US still hasn't produced a compromising majority party that would be attractive to voters who are hostile or indifferent toward the state, such as the unemployed, migrants and part of the new middle class.

When the influence of citizens in the political decision-making process weakens, this signals a real decline in political representation.

As a result, tensions and party politics, especially among party elites, tend to spill over into international affairs. That was how George W. Bush's plan for the Middle East came to be presented at the National Endowment for Democracy on November 3, 2003.

According to this plan, the Iraq invasion would have been the first stage of a long-lasting battle to win democracy in the Middle East and show everyone from Damascus to Tehran that "freedom can be everyone's fate."

But this shows that the main goal of Western representative democracy - to balance the electorate needs and the state's political decisions - was led astray, and compromise between two extreme political positions is elusive.

An efficient democracy has to combine innovative and traditional ways of interactions between the ruling class and citizens, national issues and foreign adoptions.

True democracy needs to understand the mutual influence of the electorate and its representatives, as well as compromise between them. This depends on historic and current trends in support of presidential candidates, the party system and the state.

The US election has demonstrated that Western democracies must overcome their inertness.

Candidates must conduct purposeful campaigns to ensure ties with citizens and focus on keeping in touch with the public. Only then will they manage to breathe new life into former ideals and have clarity of vision.

The author is head of the Research and Coordination work Department Russian, Diplomatic Academy, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.