Can someone explain the consept of political stability and political instability? I always figured political instability, for example, just meant changes in the government and political unrest, leading to sudden changes in law and legislation. But it seems more complex than that?
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The definitions of these are, to a large degree, contextual.
But yeah, I’m general, political stability means that the political situation in a given region or country is stable with little or no unrest or significant controversy that threatens up upend the political system/order in that space. Instability means that there is some sort of unrest or conflict that can change or upend the political system/order in a given region.
Stability, in a general sense, refers to how a system responds to being disturbed. Stable systems will resist the disturbance and return to an equilibrium, while unstable systems will amplify the disturbance and either find a new equilibrium or collapse.
Applying this to politics, a place with political stability will resist crises and challenges to the status quo. Even during periods of massive unrest, the government (and society at large) will continue to function. In a place with political instability, crises compound. Small problems can quickly combine and amplify each other and result in the failure of government/society at large.
One way to think of it is to remember that politics is an alternative to warfare. People settle their disputes through the organized business of government, and that’s that.
In politically unstable countries, they don’t use politics to get what they want. The option of going directly to violence to achieve those ends is on the table, and the instability comes from never knowing if a particular act is going to push it into open violent conflict to settle disagreements.
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