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gwern comments on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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the best example of a successful non-democracy in the modern world is China. Their internal party system is extremely convoluted, but basically the party internally appoints members to positions, notionally on meritocratic grounds, though corruption and manipulation is endemic. Here is a more detailed summary.
Given the seeming economic success of this model would it be sensible for other countries to adopt it?
Is it possible to introduce sufficient additional safeguards against corruption and abuse of power?
No. The gains from not being stupid about economics and not engaging in centralized planning and actually industrializing are so enormous that they compensate for even wretched leadership. Soviet Russia industrialized and grew for a long time despite having awful and wasteful leadership, and the same thing is happening to China.
The question is, can they, with their wretchedly corrupt non-democracy, reach similar per capitas as Japan and America? Or will they remain in a middle-income trap? If the former, then their government could indeed be considered something other countries might adopt; but if the latter, they will merely have demonstrated what all acknowledge: the Industrial Revolution is pretty damn awesome.