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Political Stability in European Democracies *
Author(s) -
ERSSON SVANTE,
LANE JANERIK
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1983.tb00061.x
Subject(s) - politics , political instability , instability , political economy , political science , economics , development economics , law , mechanics , physics
It is a widely shared belief that political instability is on the rise in European democracies. In order to test such a statement in a more rigorous manner we introduce a concept of political stability that is suitable for the description of the cross‐sectional and longitudinal variation in basic aspects of the political systems of Western Europe. A confirmatory factor analysis of standard indicators on political instability applied to European data indicates that six properties are semantically relevant: public sector deficit, inflation, governmental change, party system volatility, violence, and protests. The main findings from the cross‐sectional analysis are that political instability has become less a Latin phenomenon in Europe and that theories of political stability emphasizing two‐partyism or consociationalism encounter severe counter‐instances. The main findings from the longitudinal analysis are that political instability vanes over time and that it is not on the rise in the present situation. The combined cross‐sectional and longitudinal analysis shows clearly that it is not the case that nations are either stable or unstable in all aspects of the political system, but that the major dimensions of the concept of political stability vary extensively in relation to each other.