Being perceived by the West as a powerful yet heterogeneous “deconstructing power” and an external threat to western supremacy in global governance, the BRICS members are facing a serious “dormant threat” coming from within – economic inequalities. By asking whether inequality, like “bad cholesterol”, may silently kill the sustainability of growth by restraining access to education, health or knowledge, this article provides an assessment of the relation between the increasing inequality and rising political instability in BRICS countries. The first section of this article investigates various approaches to income and wealth inequalities, and provides a literature overview. The second section accentuates the deconstructing features of inequality in BRICS countries, which are encapsulated as the “3Ws”: weak markets, weak governments, and weak institutions. The third section looks into the inequality dynamics in BRICS members showcasing that the huge income disparities in BRICS (GINI > 0.40), combined with high food and house prices, not only fuel opportunity inequalities and growing social anger, but also lead to political instability and setbacks on the path to balanced growth. The final part presents the main conclusions.

Political stability is a key category in general political theory and in the analysis of political systems. The correct determination of the semantic scope of this concept and its proper operationalization seem to be of fundamental importance for both theoretical and empirical scientific considerations. The text draws attention to two basic variants of stability (invariability and flexibility) and two basic aspects of the concept of stability (phenomenon and potential). The conceptual ordering of the issue of political stability, supported by a literature review on the subject, aims to provide a basis for formulating the most adequate approach to the study of political systems stability. The main purpose of the text is therefore to operationalize the concept of stability and, moreover, to indicate the possible research consequences of adopting the proposed perspective.

This paper seeks to improve comprehension of issues related to political stability. The primary elucidating tool employed is the multifaceted approach to political stability. This is the idea that similar political stability mechanisms can be observed in many different political contexts. These phenomena consist of conspicuous discrepancies between the stability of dimensions or layers of the political sphere. The lack of congruency between political stability and economic stability, differences between the stability of government authorities and the stability of the whole political system, or the gap between social and political stability are examples that are not difficult to grasp in ordinary observations of political appearances. The main task of this paper is to explain and elaborate on the reasons behind this phenomenon. As an additional value, some suggestions of how our findings can change the view on the method of research on political stability are to be found. The outcome of our investigation can be applied to comparative politics, constitutional studies, and political system analysis. The paper is particularly significant for empirically oriented political theory.