Abstract
Laver and Schofield wonder what makes length of a government's life through the examples of Italy and Germany, but also of other countries. Firstly, is the number of parties of the political system related to cabinet stability? This is right in Italy, Belgium and Finland. They have a higher effective number of parties than Austria, Germany and Ireland where cabinets are longer. Nonetheless cabinet duration increased in Finland, Luxemburg and Iceland, with the size of the party system from the post-war period to the 1980s, contrary to Germany and Ireland where they went down. Countries with bigger party systems have less stable cabinet even if there is only a little or no relationship. Secondly, the composition of governments affects stability of governments, as show the examples of Italy and French Fourth Republic. Yet, coalition government in Germany, Luxemburg or Austria over the post war period was stable coalition administrations.
