Well, that tends to be the great problem with popular rule.
Eventually people get lazy, and the mechanisms of popular rule are subverted. Then well intentioned tyranny is instituted to fix the problems, which inevitably becomes malicious tyranny (sometimes over decades, sometimes before anyone has time to blink). Eventually the malicious tyranny falls, and mob rule is instituted, which shortly becomes popular rule. But of course only if the society is lucky and doesn't become extinct during the upheaval. No matter what, rivers of blood will flow.
The only counteragent I can think of is to delay the getting lazy part for as long as possible, but eventually generations will grow up who simply do not understand, and therefore become lazy.
Unfortunately I think that it is too late in the case of the Western world. We are going to end up with one type of Tyranny or another, because we were too complacent for too long, and the time to fix the problems the right way has come and gone. Now all that remains to be seen if whether our civilization will become extinct or go for another turn of the wheel.
