Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Soviet_Democracy
They do have democracy and voting and the actions of their government are far more aligned with the expressed will of their people than any Liberal Democracy (which are all just Oligarchies with a veneer of democracy).
https://act.represent.us/sign/usa-oligarchy-research-explained
The first link above is for the USSR, but the soviet (small ‘s’) form of democracy has been used by many communist democracies that the West decries as authoritarian helholes (which generally just means they refuse to bow to the international capitalist order).
The second is for the US but the only difference of you did the same research for any Liberal Democracy would be a question of degree not of substance.
North Korea has democracy and voting? That’s news to me. They definitely don’t have very much. So you don’t think North Korea is authoritarian?
I think “authoritarian” is a meaningless designation that only really means “geopolitical adversary of the current hegemon”.
The term came into common usage during the Cold War as a way of conflating communist countries with fascist ones in the minds of Western Liberals.
North Korea has a really fucking weird political system but luckily it is not the only country that calls itself socialist. The USA are also undemocratic but you don’t seem to judge all parliamentary “democracies” by one especially bad example