Democracy: What This World Really Needs?

Sure, I grant that "democracy" is such an overthrown word that hardly mirrors, in exact likeness and theory, any known society to date, but in some form or another, it exists. For those of us who live in what most would call democratic nations, how are we to look at this principle? How are we to conceptualize it, embrace it, look at its postives and its negatives? Most importantly, how do we come to understand how "democracy" should apply to everyone else we share this planet with? As an American, its hard for me to get a grasp, a good sense, of how this country should push its views on others.