I believe that you are making a mistake, by assuming that the values you associate to democracy would be the values that other civilizations associate to democracy you are misunderstanding the actual practice of that type of government.
Again this is where I think civics would do the same job only better, and I think different factions would have different civics. Most people I talk to confuse free market with democracy. A mistake I made that democracy had states to represent it. Democracy could have monopolies, nationalize, slavery, segregation, imperialism, or interpendence, isolation, national banking vs private banking, national or independent education, or socialized health care vs business controlled healthcare are things that would change things how drastically is up to the game designers. Can I predict how different factions think differently I don't know.
There is no need for a name change or a civics change. The values of the citizenry determine the ideology of the democracy, in its basic form democracy is simply a representation of what the citizens desire.
This is a mechanic I wouldn't mind seeing in the game where the people choose what alignment you are if you are a democracy. This could be done based on how you play. This would at least provide a penalty to go with benefits for this kind of government. I imagine a lot of people would have a problem with this. I also wouldn't mind random laws being passed by congress in a democracy.
Thus, as some have harped on here, the desires of an "evil" society would not change merely because they have been given a voice in the process of their government. Overnight the Drengin would not stop hating Torians nor stop wanting a strong military, supporting slavery or genocide, simply put they would still value Athe same things that they valued before.
Assuming this response is based from my response. I would have to say yes and no. I'm assuming this is based on different factions having the same type of government being run differently. My stance is that certain factions would run things drastically that different. Assuming that we as a faction is really neutral our tyrants never step down that easily. Almost are usually crooked. Parties usually run things, business usually try to run things. People usually don't get represented. Now if someone was really evil the leaders would not easily give up power and probably kill the people who try democracy. The Thalans are thinking differently than humans. The Yor would think differently. Also this was a way to make it more fair for when a faction specifically the Yor would not get the other government options. This is a defense why different factions would think that different.
[quote who="Rozier" reply="16" id="3446483"]
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In basic form democracy does not impart Good or Bad ideas, it is merely allowing for the populace to determine the law and policy the civilization should follow.
All tyrants would not give power over to the people, so if they are evil not neutral like this would democracy even come about from a more evil faction or one that doesn't even think like us.
This mistake most of you are making is that you are assuming the words "Good" and "Evil" have a fixed definition. The moral Good of a Drengin would not be the same as the moral Good of a Torian, and the same would go for the Moral Bad of a Drengin would not be the same as the Humans and so on.
This is why the next game is going to be idealologies instead of alignments. I hope this is more than a name change though. My main reason for the suggestion is for game tweaking and trying to fix a problem with the Yor. Also to take a reason into account is would this really help make the different factions more individualized. At least one way to fix an economic problem is to add a little to economics. Changing governments would cause the changing of bonuses that could be fixed with a different techs.