Why do some countries get low scores on Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism even though they appear to be quite stable?
This indicator does not measure how long a particular government has been in power. Instead, it captures perceptions of the likelihood of politically-motivated violence, including terrorism. Thus the United States for example has a sharp decline in this dimension between 2000 and 2002. This happened not because the political process in the United States is now perceived as more unstable than in the 1990s. Rather, it reflects perceptions of the risk of terrorist attacks on the United States that increased sharply following the events of September 11, 2001. Similarly, countries that are functioning democracies, but are marred by domestic politically-motivated violence, may also not score well on this indicator.
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