Introduction. The purpose of developing instability concepts in the economic and political environment is to create a set of instruments for effective planning and forecasting the consequences of managerial decisions, the one that corresponds to the qualities and characteristics of this environment in a given historical period. Studying the evolution of such concepts enables a number of conclusions to be drawn about the nature of changes that have occurred in the sphere of global economic and managerial relations over recent decades. Theoretical analysis. The instability concepts BANI, RUPT, SHIVA, SPOD, TACI, TUNA, and VUCA are considered in chronological order, with a detailed description of the qualities of all the listed models provided. Empirical analysis. It is proposed that all qualities of the specified models should be divided into five classes: constitutive qualities, epistemic uncertainty qualities, temporal qualities, cognitive qualities, and emotional qualities. These classes can be ranked according to the degree of increasing subjectivity of assessment, from the most objective (constitutive) to the least objective (emotional). Depending on the number of qualities drawn from different classes, the concepts themselves are proposed to be categorized as analytical, limited-analytical, or metaphorical. Concepts of the first and second types may hold the greatest scientific significance. It is hypothesized that the social environment initially possesses all qualities simultaneously; however, in each specific historical period, some become manifest and dominant, while others remain in a recessive form. It is also proposed to represent each concept as a matrix of qualities and, by analogy, to develop a marker of instability in the political and economic environment (an “instability barometer”). Results. The analysis revealed an increasing chaoticization of the global political and economic environment and a rise in entropy within socio-economic and political systems. As the environment changes, the resilience of organizational and managerial structures diminishes. A transformation in the functioning mechanisms of economic and political systems is observed.