Yes, stability is not well defined. I guess I'd define it as a period of time without wars or non-peaceful transfers of governmental power. Your knowledge of C

Yes, stability is not well defined. I guess I'd define it as a period of time without wars or non-peaceful transfers of governmental power. Your knowledge of Chinese history seems pretty good to me! By the invasion I didn't mean the opium wars, I was referring to the Sino-Japanese wars in which Japan essentially conquered most of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria China has probably had a somewhat more stable writing system and gene pool compared to Britain, that's true. I suspect with more knowledge there'd turn out to be pretty large differences over time too. For instance medieval Britain used the Latin alphabet/writing system. The language has changed enormously since that time, but still uses that script. Probably Chinese is the same. Getting back to the original point (and I'll drop Brexit), your original question was whether democratic systems are really more stable than others. With my definition of stability as avoiding civil wars, revolutions, and other violent transfers of governmental power, I feel pretty sure they are more stable. If you define it as absence of change in art or other forms of culture, I'd concede the point - I'd expect a dictatorship to have less change in art and language, simply because culture benefits from free expression and some of the most creative people in society are often rebellious, which doesn't fit well with such societies. However, I quite enjoy unstable (or dynamic) culture paired with stable (or peaceful) constitutional change. That seems like a good mix, and it also seems to require democracy.