What is stability?

Although stability is a central notion in several academic disciplines, the parallels remain unexplored since previous discussions of the concept have been almost exclusively subject-specific. In the literature we have found three basic concepts of stability, that we call constancy, robustness, and resilience. They are all found in both the natural and the social sciences. To analyze the three concepts we introduce a general formal framework in which stability relates to transitions between states. It can then be shown that robustness is a limiting case of resilience, whereas neither constancy nor resilience can be defined in terms of the other. Hence, there are two basic concepts of stability, both of which are used in both the social and the natural sciences. This congruence in the concepts of stability is of particular interest for endeavours to construct models that represent both natural and social phenomena.