[pasabagi]

I think the precondition for stability is a strong civil society, and clear traditions about what constitutes legitimacy. Democracy fosters both of these. Dictatorship can foster both in the case of an 'enlightened despot', but it's often the case that the despot is incompetent, or worse.

If you look at transitions like the english civil war, or the french revolution, the clear precondition of revolution is not 'stability', as you think, but rather systemic dysfunction compounded by incompetent leadership. This kind of situation is one which democracies, in theory, should be much less vulnerable to.

Your ideas about the relative balance of power between state and people make some sense, I think, but they only matter when the threat is internal dissent. Most of the states in modern europe had a form of republicanism enforced on them by the French, who were able to invade all their neighbors because their republican government was (while very dysfunctional) more efficient and able to field talented officers and large armies.

A modernised military, moreover, consists of normal people - and they will also feel the disillusionment and apathy that grips really dysfunctional regimes. Saudi Arabia, for example, fields armies of terrible soldiers, using the most advanced weapons available.

China is an interesting and very weird state, because it's a very old civilization with deep roots, with very different basic ideas to the west, and they have turned marxism into a kind of managerial culture for an extremely capitalist society. I don't know if they will follow any of the typical patterns that totalitarian states follow. You can't really use the USSR as a point of comparison, because the USSR was a very European project, coming directly out of the enlightenment, and the western political tradition. Nor would Korea make sense, since they were colonized, and both North and South represent different reactions to colonial subjugation.

[biscotti]

Well that's certainly one take. Charles had a bit of a complex sure but you have to understand the context of the time in that Cromwells foreign co-conspirators were demanding nothing less than his head.

The precondition of the English civil war in my opinion was more the funds that facilitated it promised by financiers from Amsterdam who ultimately went on to be granted charter to found the BoE.

As you know the result of this civil war was to wreck the fine castles, history and heritage of the English. Destroy many a dynasty and teach the Irish to hate the Brits for all eternity.

Issac D'Israeli produced a worthwhile read on Charles [1] if you'd like to know more on his character and quarry.

[1] https://archive.org/details/commentariesonli03disruoft/page/...