Everyone knows what is going on and keeps the status quo, but a shock (often external) occurs to ignite the dry wood, and disruption erupts.
Demonstrations and riots can be healthy releases of tension in democracies. Bottle-in the regular microquakes, and you get devastating earthquakes instead.
I would say Russia, China, and North Korea (all well-known to disappear people) have been incredibly stable. Even countries that were quite liberal (e.g., Iran, Myanmar) have worn their populations down into compliance in their major cities. Even the liberal West is borrowing from the same playbook (e.g., police raids on investigative journalists, politically motivated prosecutions).
The strategy works, but as you imply, maybe there's a breaking point... or maybe totalitarian states have figured out how to get as close to that line as possible without crossing it.
I don’t think so. Internally all these countries are very stable, they are just weak to external forces that are out innovating then and move up on the tech/production tree.
Everyone knows what is going on and keeps the status quo, but a shock (often external) occurs to ignite the dry wood, and disruption erupts.
Demonstrations and riots can be healthy releases of tension in democracies. Bottle-in the regular microquakes, and you get devastating earthquakes instead.