Determinants of government duration: Correcting for hyper inflating measures

Recent years have seen growing scholarly attention to the role of intra-coalition partisan change. Yet, Shomer et al. (2022) critiqued the common definition of government termination that regards any partisan change as a government termination, arguing that it inflates the number of governments and distorts scholarly understanding of government duration—particularly in certain countries. This research note examines whether, and to what extent, adopting Shomer et al.’s (2022) modified definition alters substantive conclusions about the determinants of government duration and stability. We follow their approach, redefining government termination based on: (1) a new prime minister, (2) an election, or (3) a crucial partisan loss that alters majority status. Using this revised definition and applying parametric event history models that incorporate established determinants of duration, we find evidence that the conventional measure can bias conclusions about what drives government stability, especially with regards to the impact of ENGP and parliamentary polarization.