Measuring government duration and stability in Central Eastern European democracies

Abstract

Existing studies of government duration in parliamentary democracies typically measure the length of a government's tenure in office without accounting for delays in the government formation process. By assuming that a cabinet leaves office on the day prior to the new cabinet taking office, these measures ignore periods during which a government has lost its mandate but is still legally in power as a caretaker government. A consequence is that governments that are actually stable and governments that only appear stable because replacement governments take a long time to form are observationally equivalent. This suggests that some existing studies of government stability are potentially flawed. It also means that a number of interesting research questions cannot be answered with existing data. Many of these questions address the various consequences of caretaker governments. The answers to these questions are relevant for scholars interested in representation and accountability. This article presents a new dataset collected on government duration in eleven Central Eastern European democracies from 1990 to 2008 that specifically takes account of caretaker periods and delays in the government formation process. These data will provide scholars with more flexibility to choose the measure that best reflects their underlying conception of government stability.

Defining and classifying technocrat‐led and technocratic governments

“…However, this is not the case for Berov, Fischer and the other technocrat‐led governments listed in Table , such as Zolotas I, Dini or Vacaroiu I, II and II in Romania. If, as Golder (: 4) states, caretaker governments ‘should simply maintain the status quo ’, then the technocrat‐led governments in Table cannot be considered ‘caretakers’ given both the major policy changes which they were charged with introducing and the length of time they were given to do so (see also Laver & Shepsle ; Conrad & Golder ). Differentiating between our technocrat‐led administrations in this way – in terms of remit – thus allows us to move towards identifying what we term ‘real‐existing full technocratic governments’.…”

Monetary Institutions and the Political Survival of Democratic Leaders

“…Thus, it is not clear that the Bernhard and Leblang analysis explains political survival as we conceptualize it in this paper. Indeed, a recent study has shown that the percentage of the potential term that a government fulfills is not a good proxy for the length of time a cabinet stays in office (Conrad and Golder 2010).…”

Political instability and economic growth: an empirical evidence from the Baltic states

“…The econometric analysis is based on seven-year quarterly data (2002Q1-2008Q4) collected from Eurostat -European Statistical Offi ce and Conrad and Golder (2010). Data comprise GDP growth rate, investments growth rate, exports growth rate, population growth rate, and number of cabinet changes in the Baltic states -Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.…”