Geopolitics

Proposed one-sentence definition of democracy (or liberalism?) that's different from any I've seen:

**The government feels more like a game than like a player.**

That is, it's an environment for different people to interact, cooperate, compete etc, and not an actor exercising its own agency / intentionality.

Autocracies have seen bloody wars, marriages, alliances etc. - indeed, many older board games are inspired by these. Or, anarchies or weak democracies were autocrats swoop in to fill the power vaccuum. 

So, it's a game regardless, but what makes democracies unique is the game includes all/most of its citizens