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Therally 'round the flag effect, also referred to as therally 'round the flag syndrome, is a concept used inpolitical science andinternational relations to explain increased short-run popular support of a country's government or political leaders during periods ofinternational crisis orwar.^[1] Because the effect can reduce criticism of governmental policies, it can be seen as a factor ofdiversionary foreign policy.^[1]

Political scientistJohn Mueller suggested the effect in 1970, in a paper called "Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson". He defined it as coming from an event with three qualities:^[2]

1. "Is international"
2. "Involves theUnited States and particularly the President directly"
3. "Specific, dramatic, and sharply focused"

In addition, Mueller created five categories of rallies. Mueller's five categories are:

1. Sudden US military intervention (e.g.,Korean War,Bay of Pigs Invasion)
2. Major diplomatic actions (e.g.,Truman Doctrine)
3. Dramatic technological developments (e.g.,Sputnik)
4. US-Soviet summit meetings (e.g.,Potsdam Conference)
5. Major military developments in ongoing wars (e.g.,Tet Offensive)

These categories are considered dated by modern political scientists, as they rely heavily onCold War events.^[3]

Since Mueller's original theories, two schools of thought have emerged to explain the causes of the effect. The first, "The Patriotism School of Thought" holds that in times of crisis, the American public sees the President as the embodiment of national unity. The second, "The Opinion Leadership School" believes that the rally emerges from a lack of criticism from members of the opposition party, most often in theUnited States Congress. If opposition party members appear to support the president, the media has no conflict to report, thus it appears to the public that all is well with the performance of the president.^[4] The two theories have both been criticized, but it is generally accepted that the Patriotism School of thought is better to explain causes of rallies, while the Opinion Leadership School of thought is better to explain duration of rallies.^[3] It is also believed that the lower the presidential approval rating before the crisis, the larger the increase will be in terms of percentage points because it leaves the president more room for improvement. For example,Franklin D. Roosevelt only had a 12pp increase in approval from 72% to 84% following theAttack on Pearl Harbor, whereasGeorge W. Bush had a 39pp increase from 51% to 90% following theSeptember 11 attacks.^[5]

Another theory about the cause of the effect is believed to be embedded in theUS Constitution. Unlike in other countries, the constitution makes the President bothhead of government andhead of state. Because of this, the president receives a temporary boost in popularity because his Head of State role gives him symbolic importance to the American people. However, as time goes on his duties as Head of Government require partisan decisions that polarize opposition parties and diminish popularity. This theory falls in line more with the Opinion Leadership School.

Due to the highly statistical nature of presidential polls, University of Alabama political scientist John O'Neal has approached the study of rally 'round the flag using mathematics. O'Neal has postulated that the Opinion Leadership School is the more accurate of the two using mathematical equations. These equations are based on quantified factors such as the number of headlines fromThe New York Times about the crisis, the presence of bipartisan support or hostility, and prior popularity of the president.^[6]

Political Scientist fromThe University of California Los Angeles, Matthew A. Baum found that the source of a rally 'round the flag effect is from independents and members of the opposition party shifting their support behind the President after the rallying effect. Baum also found that when the country is more divided or in a worse economic state then the rally effect is larger. This is because more people who are against the president before the rallying event switch to support him afterwards. When the country is divided before the rallying event there is a higher potential increase in support for the President after the rallying event.^[7]

In a study by Political Scientist Terrence L. Chapman and Dan Reiter, rallies in Presidential approval ratings were found to be bigger when there was U.N. Security Council supported Militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). Having U.N. Security Council support was found to increase the rally effect in presidential approval by 8 to 9 points compared to when there was not U.N. Security Council support.^[5]

According to a 2019 study of ten countries in the period 1990–2014, there is evidence of a rally-around-the-flag effect early on in an intervention with military casualties (in at least the first year) but voters begin to punish the governing parties after 4.5 years.^[8] A 2021 study found weak effects for the rally-around-the-flag effect.^[9] A 2023 study found thatmilitarized interstate disputes, on average, decrease public support for national leaders rather than increase it.^[10]

A 2022 study applies the same logic of rally effects tocrisis termination instead of just onset. Using all available public presidential polling andcrisis data from 1953 to 2016, the researchers found that a president received a three point increase to their approval rating, on average, when terminating an international crisis. They suggest that the surge in approvals is as much related to a proof of a president's foreign affairs competency, as it is related to a mutual camaraderie in defense of the nation.^[11]Additionally, the suggestion that a president can achieve approval boosts via ending conflict instead of initiating conflict makes less cynical assumptions about the options within a president's toolkit and provide an additional avenue for inquiry intodiversionary war theories.

The effect has been examined within the context of nearly every major foreign policy crisis sinceWorld War II. Some notable examples:

• DuringWorld War I, most belligerents saw a lessening of partisanship. Most socialist parties abandoned their pledges to oppose wars and endorsed their governments, leading to the break-up of theSecond International.^[12] This was part of theSpirit of 1914
  • In theGerman Empire, theSocial Democratic Party enabled theGerman entry into the war by voting in favor of war credits at theReichstag and supported the government for most of the war.Kaiser Wilhelm II subsequently declared aBurgfrieden in which normal partisan politics would be suspended.^[13][14][15]
  • TheFrench Third Republic declared a similarSacred Union which was embraced by most socialist parties. TheFrench Section of the Workers' International leaderJean Jaurès was assassinated while preparing to give what theFrench nationalist assassinRaoul Villain believed would be a pacifist speech.^[13][16]
  • TheUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland also saw a lessening of political instability and militancy asIrish nationalist,suffragette, andtrade unionist dissidents supported the war.^[13] In particular theCurragh mutiny, in which manyUlster Protestants and some officers of theBritish Armed Forces with the support of theConservative Party refused to recognize the impending implementation ofIrish Home Rule and threatened civil war, immediately ended with theBritish entry into the war and an upswell of support for theLiberal government. Later, the Coalition Liberal-Conservative government ofDavid Lloyd George used its wartime support to call a"coupon election" in 1918 in which candidates endorsed by the government with a "Coalition Coupon" won a massive landslide and decimated theLiberal Party.^[13][17]

• DuringWorld War II, British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill enjoyed massive popularity in theUnited Kingdom for opposing theNational Government's foreign policy ofappeasement towardsNazi Germany before the war and for saving the country from near-defeat in theBattle of Britain afterwards. All major parties in theBritish Parliament, including the oppositionLabour Party, joinedChurchill's war ministry. His approval ratings never declined below 78 percent for his entire wartime premiership. Churchill's personal popularity did not extend to theConservative Party, which opposed thewelfare state andnationalisation advocated by Labour and remained associated with appeasement andinterwar unemployment and poverty. As a result the Conservatives heavily lost the1945 general election to Labour.^[18][19][20]

• Cuban Missile Crisis: According toGallup polls, PresidentJohn F. Kennedy's approval rating in early October 1962 was at 61%. By November, after the crisis had passed, Kennedy's approval rose to 74%. The spike in approval peaked in December 1962 at 76%. By June 1963, Kennedy's approval rating had declined to its pre-crisis level of 61%.^[3][21]
• Iran hostage crisis: According to Gallup polls, PresidentJimmy Carter saw his approval rating surge to 61%, up 23 points from his pre-crisis rating,^[22] following the initial seizure of theU.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979. However, Carter's handling of the crisis caused popular support to decrease, and by November 1980 Carter had returned to his pre-crisis approval rating.^[23]
• Gulf War: According to Gallup polls, PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush was rated at 59% approval in January 1991, but following the success of Operation Desert Storm, Bush enjoyed a peak 89% approval rating in February 1991. Bush's approval rating then substantially declined, returning to its pre-crisis level of 61% in October.^[3][24]
• Following theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, PresidentGeorge W. Bush received an unprecedented increase in his approval rating. On 10 September, Bush had aGallup Poll rating of 51%. By 15 September, his approval rate had increased by 34 percentage points to 85%. Just a week later, Bush was at 90%, the highest presidential approval rating ever. Over a year after the attacks occurred, Bush still received higher approval than he did before 9/11 (68% in November 2002). Both the size and duration of Bush's popularity after 9/11 are believed to be the largest of any post-crisis boost. Many people believe that this popularity gave Bush a mandate and eventually the political leverage toinvade Iraq in 2003.^[3][25]
• Killing of Osama bin Laden: According to Gallup polls, PresidentBarack Obama received a slight uptick in his approving ratings following the 2 May 2011 killing of bin Laden, jumping from 45% in late April to 53% after bin Laden's death was announced.^[26] The rally effect did not last long, as Obama's approval ratings were back down to 45% by 15 July.^{[citation needed]}
• Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Following the shooting in December 2012, President Obama received another slight uptick in approval according to Gallup, increasing from 50% before the shooting to 56% shortly after.^[27] The rally effect was over by 17 January 2013.^{[citation needed]}
• Killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri: According to Gallup polls, PresidentJoe Biden received a small uptick in approval (from 38% to 44%) shortly after ordering a drone strike that killed al-Zawahiri on 31 July 2022.^[28] Afterwards, his approval ratings declined for the remainder of 2022.^{[citation needed]}

• In Turkey, following itsJune 2015 electoral setback,Erdogan resumed military hostilities in order to boost nationalist votes, dissolved the freshly elected parliament and successfully won theNovember 2015 Turkish general election.^[29] The inducedThird PKK insurgency (2015–2025) lead to30,000 more deaths : over 7,000 in Turkey and 23,000 in foreign operations.
• TheRusso-Ukrainian War caused an increase of support for PresidentVladimir Putin in Russia. His approval rating rose 10 percent to 71.6 percent after he announced theRussian annexation of Crimea.^[30] His approval rating also rose from 69 percent in January 2022 to 83 percent in March, as did support for Prime MinisterMikhail Mishustin, as a result of theRussian invasion of Ukraine.^[31][32]
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused an even larger boost of both domestic and international support for Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy, with his approval rating rising from 30 percent to 90 percent in Ukraine and also rising to 70 percent in the United States.^[33]
• Israel war on Gaza, Prime MinisterNetanyahu is documented as prolonging the war to maintain his premiership.^[34]
• TheIran–Israel war in 2025 led to increased popular support within Iran for the incumbentIslamic Republic, including from opponents of the regime, though out of a pretext ofnationalism rather than outright support for the establishment.^[35][36]

The outbreak of theCOVID-19 pandemic in 2020 briefly resulted in popularity spikes for several world leaders. PresidentDonald Trump's approval rating saw a slight increase during the outbreak in early 2020.^[37] In addition to Trump, other heads of government inEurope also gained in popularity.^[38] French PresidentEmmanuel Macron, Italian Prime MinisterGiuseppe Conte, Dutch Prime MinisterMark Rutte, and British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson became "very popular" in the weeks following the pandemic hitting their respective nations.^[38] Johnson, in particular, who "became seriously ill himself" from COVID-19, led his government to become "the most popular in decades."^[38][39] It was uncertain how long their increase in the approval polls would last, but former NATO secretary generalGeorge Robertson opined, "People do rally around, but it evaporates fast."^[38]

There are fears that a leader will abuse the rally 'round the flag effect. These fears come from thediversionary theory of war in which a leader creates an international crisis in order to distract from domestic affairs and to increase their approval ratings through a rally 'round the flag effect. The fear associated with this theory is that a leader can create international crises to avoid dealing with serious domestic issues or to increase their approval rating when it begins to drop.^[40]

• Wag the Dog is a movie released by coincidence a month just before theClinton–Lewinsky scandal with high likenesses to the events of the affair. To divert attention on a sex scandal, the American president fabricates a war with terrorists inAlbania. The movie was also remade two years later.^{[citation needed]}

• "Battle Cry of Freedom", anAmerican Civil War song that urgedunion supporters to "rally 'round the flag", that was also used for Abraham Lincoln's re-election campaign.
• List of heads of the executive by approval rating
• United States presidential approval rating
• Flag-waving

• Conformity
• Diversionary tactics
• Opinion polling in the United States
• Legal terminology from popular culture
• Politics of the United States
• Propaganda in the United States
• Propaganda techniques

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