How long is a reasonable time for a new Government to prove that they can run a country?

A VERY long time. The government is full of expected surprises. Never know what’s going to come up next!

Four years but it can take a lot less to prove that they can’t.

too long…

To only prove that they are capable to run a country I believe it is not more than a year. The rest three of four years is the continuation of the first year. If they fail int he first year, apparently they will fail in the next three or four years.

During the period significantly less than four years, a new government is typically sorting out the mess created by the previous government. It takes the best part of four years to see the beneficial effects that the incumbents might have achieved in their own right.

If that were the collective received wisdom of of the democratic world then they would set shorter terms of office, thus allowing the electorate to return a new government when the incumbents had been proved inadequate. . Four years may of course be too long in some despotic states, but it is fine in average democracy in my opinion.

they try to prove in teh run up to the election which is why we vote…

how long is a piece of string.

You cannot say this. There are way too many factors that go into the first year in office to be able to extrapolate to this generalization. Perhaps the economy was in a horrible position, you cannot expect the government to turn that around in a year! You can also turn that around and talk about the popularity of a government is always the strongest in the first year following election. Look at the current United States Administration, when Obama was first elected, he was incredibly popular. At the end of his second year, his numbers have tanked! If you simply look at the first year, you would say that this Administration has been “successful” even though most scholars, and political activists would disagree.

It depends on the status of the country when the government takes office. If the country has been run reasonably well, you should be able to see within a year. If the country has recently experienced civil war, economic crash, or another major incident, it could take longer. The other thing to consider is if the government has absolute control or if it is a democracy, in which case you will have at least 2 different parties fighting against each other for change. If that’s the case, it can take a lot longer to see any real changes.