We challenge the accepted measures and definitions of governmental instability common in the literature and databases, which are based on governmental durability. We argue that these measures, which rely on the combination of 3 criteria (change in partisan composition; change in the identity of the Prime Minister, and occurrence of general elections) are from some aspects too inclusive (not any change in government's partisan composition signifies instability), and from other aspects too narrow (focusing almost exclusively on a government as a whole).
We look at whether broadening the scope of conceptualization of government instability makes a difference and demonstrate that countries might be characterized as unstable from one perspective, yet stable from another. We additionally show that the commonly used definition of governments used to measure government duration inflates instability, at least for some countries. We demonstrate that using more precise definitions of government longevity—ones that do not equate any changes in government's partisan composition as a sign of instability—yield important ramifications for the rank-order of countries' governments' instability.
