In 1946, when the memory of the horrors of fascism was still fresh, the British Encyclopedia produced this informative film explain the slippery path from democracy to despotism. To find signs of despotism, one has to go beyond noble words and phrases, ie. propaganda.

The film suggests using specific scales to identify sign of despotism: The respect, power, economic distribution and information scales. The respect scale measures how equally different strata of society are respected, the power scale measures the effective distribution of power within society.

Imbalanced economic distribution (quite typical in western democracies) is a stepping stone towards despotism. The chances for despotism increase as well with a concentration of media and the freedom of speech. Certainly, the concentration of media ownership has increased dramatically since 1946, and parts of anti-terror legislation (eg Australia Sedition laws) directly attack freedom of speech.

The chosen examples seem a bit old-fashioned, the mechanism have adapted over time. The general ideas using this scales seems good, though. See for yourself how you would rate your country.