Elections all over

It seems there are elections all over the world this weekend - Germany, New Zealand, Afghanistan, NSW (by-elections). But what price democracy? And what determines if a nation is democratic? Is there any way that a country can be fast-tracked into democracy or is there a set of conditions which need to be in place - optimal breeding conditions. I ask this because there was an interesting piece in one of the Shanghai dailies - which had been syndicated from a European outlet. It suggested that democracy was tried to the economy - and the more stable an economy, the more likelihood that democracy, if it didn't exist, would take root there. They weren't saying that people had to be affluent but certainly the majority of people have to be aware of where their next paycheck was coming from.