The problem with authoritarianism, even if it "get's things done", is that those things might be against the will of the people. People want more science funding, or healthcare. Dictator wants to increase industry. Which is more likely to get done, eh?
Never minding the dictators that would rather get themselves a new 100 foot boat, or a increased military.
Course, not many democracies manage the whole... peoples will thing. That's where effective democracy VS ineffective democracy comes in. Ineffective authoritarianism (i.e. the dictator doesn't actually hold any power)... well you get China. The central authority doesn't actually have any authority, it's just corrupt local officials who are bribed by everyone and it leads to a big mess.
African democracy hasn't really worked because of corruption, misappropriation of funds, lower education, and warlords everywhere. Doesn't mean shouldn't stop trying to get democracy to work, just means they have a lot more issues to fix than, say, Vietnam, in getting democracy.
BTW I approve of the monarchy because it's so fangless and it brings in so much money to the U.K.
Then again I'm not much of a principles/ideals person, as long as democracy actually -exists- there and gets things done, and is used, then it doesn't matter if you have a man in a tutu appointed by Jim the hobo barber who needs to sign off on things to make it law, and if he doesn't sign it then he gets sacked and you get a new tutu-man, or a long line of Kings and Queens appointed by God himself to... sign off on stuff, and if they don't, you sack 'em and get a president. It's just there to look pretty.
BTW when people said "monarchies existance is degrading to democracy", the implication I got is that less people would vote because they figure "Eh, we got a queen," so any democractic election only reflects the views of a certain segment of hte population. 'Course, we the world already GOT that issue, not everyone votes, and personally I think that the people who don't vote are not voting for many more reasons than because you guys got a queen. So changing that wouldn't actually change anything, just less tourism money (by about 1.7 billion pounds, last count I saw)