Democracies come about more often from gradualist reforms than from revolutions. Revolutions have a distinct tendency - though obviously this is not a hard rule - to produce strongman governments whose primary claim to legitimacy is that they ended the chaos of the revolution.

> Then what does produce democracies?

European history is not a secret. It was mostly gradual reforms over decades, ending in women's vote around 1920.

On another level, you can think of it as a rising middle class demanding and getting political influence proportional to their economical power.

Canada is one example of a country that did not need a revolution to gain its independence.

Well we just stood around until the UK imploded, and they told us we were off on our own haha. Canada rode the wave of deconialization that, it could be argued, began when the UK lost Hong Kong to Japan in WWII. Losing HK to Japan showed the empire could no longer defend its colonies and the bubble popped. It’ll be a while before we find out if such a strategy is effective in the PRC.

I mean, we still celebrate July 1st as Canada Day. I like to joke that it’s “Dependence Day” since it celebrates the signing of the British North America Act, which, and I’m paraphrasing here, says “this whole Queen thing is working for us let’s keep it going.” As compared to the Declaration of Independence, which, well, you know the rest.