As shown by several previous studies on government survival, ideological diversity within cabinets matters. More precisely, it has been suggested that ideological diversity is inversely related to cabinet duration; when the cabinet preference range increases the more likely that a cabinet collapses ahead of the electoral calendar. This paper further disentangle this relationship by examine cabinet duration in 17 Western democracies from 1945-2010 under varying institutional contexts. We found indications, in line with previous investigations of this relationship, that more ideological similar parties do have a longer average cabinet duration, but we also found that if coalition partners are too similar this could conversely increase the risk of cabinet termination. A plausible explanation for this finding is that when parties are too similar they are basically competing for the same stratum of the electorate, thus tries to win the hearts of the same voters, which could give rise to conflicts within the government coalition.
