The "Rally-'Round-the-Flag" Phenomenon and the Diversionary Use of Force

Abstract

The observation that groups unify in the face of common threats is long-standing. At the level of the nation-state, this is called the “rally-'round-the-flag” phenomenon. In the case of the United States, the rally phenomenon is measured as a surge of public approval for the president when the nation is involved in an international crisis.

Two hypotheses have been offered for why this surge of support occurs: (1) patriotism, as individuals respond to a threat by identifying with an in-group, in this case the nation and its president; and (2) opinion leadership, as the information environment changes because opposition leaders fall silent or support the president during a crisis and a portion of the public follows those elite partisan cues.

Through three waves of scholarship, empirical evidence has cumulated about whether, when, why, and how much people rally in response to international crises (although much of the evidence is based on dynamics within the United States). The public’s reaction to a crisis is not automatic; sometimes public approval for the president goes up; other times the president’s approval ratings go down. A positive rally effect is associated with a variety of conditions, such as how prominently the event is reported, whether the White House actively frames the issue, the amount of criticism from opposition elites, and whether the country is at war or has recently concluded a war. The sizes of such rallies are variable, but on average, rallies in response to the deployment of force or international crises are small. Only wars (or other spectacular events like a large-scale terrorist attack) consistently provoke sizable rallies and these big events elicit an emotional reaction from citizens and a self-identification with the nation. Both hypotheses—patriotism and opinion leadership—are helpful in explaining why rallies occur and why they taper off over time.

The “diversionary theory of war” or the “diversionary use of force” is, for obvious reasons, a companion literature to the scholarship on rally effects. The logic is simple: if the public rallies around its leader in the face of external threats, then the possibility exists that politicians will intentionally create crises or deploy military forces or start wars to enhance their own political fortunes. Scholars have spent much effort trying to locate patterns of diversionary behavior by American presidents and other world leaders with inconsistent and inconclusive results.

But the cumulative findings from the rally-'round-the-flag scholarship show that leaders can’t expect much of a public rally from any but the most spectacular of international crises, such as full-scale war. These findings from the rally literature help to explain the lack of consistent empirical support for diversionary theory.

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The “Rally-'Round-the-Flag” Phenomenon and the
Diversionary Use of Force
Shoon Murray
Subject: World Politics Online Publication Date: Jun 2017
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.518

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

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Summary and Keywords
The observation that groups unify in the face of common threats is long-standing. At the
level of the nation-state, this is called the “rally-'round-the-flag” phenomenon. In the case
of the United States, the rally phenomenon is measured as a surge of public approval for
the president when the nation is involved in an international crisis.
Two hypotheses have been offered for why this surge of support occurs: (1) patriotism, as
individuals respond to a threat by identifying with an in-group, in this case the nation and
its president; and (2) opinion leadership, as the information environment changes
because opposition leaders fall silent or support the president during a crisis and a
portion of the public follows those elite partisan cues.
Through three waves of scholarship, empirical evidence has cumulated about whether,
when, why, and how much people rally in response to international crises (although much
of the evidence is based on dynamics within the United States). The public’s reaction to a
crisis is not automatic; sometimes public approval for the president goes up; other times
the president’s approval ratings go down. A positive rally effect is associated with a
variety of conditions, such as how prominently the event is reported, whether the White
House actively frames the issue, the amount of criticism from opposition elites, and
whether the country is at war or has recently concluded a war. The sizes of such rallies
are variable, but on average, rallies in response to the deployment of force or
international crises are small. Only wars (or other spectacular events like a large-scale
terrorist attack) consistently provoke sizable rallies and these big events elicit an
emotional reaction from citizens and a self-identification with the nation. Both hypotheses
—patriotism and opinion leadership—are helpful in explaining why rallies occur and why
they taper off over time.
The “diversionary theory of war” or the “diversionary use of force” is, for obvious
reasons, a companion literature to the scholarship on rally effects. The logic is simple: if
the public rallies around its leader in the face of external threats, then the possibility
exists that politicians will intentionally create crises or deploy military forces or start
wars to enhance their own political fortunes. Scholars have spent much effort trying to
locate patterns of diversionary behavior by American presidents and other world leaders
with inconsistent and inconclusive results.
But the cumulative findings from the rally-'round-the-flag scholarship show that leaders
can’t expect much of a public rally from any but the most spectacular of international
crises, such as full-scale war. These findings from the rally literature help to explain the
lack of consistent empirical support for diversionary theory.

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Keywords: empirical international relations theory, rally round the flag, diversionary theory of war, diversionary
use of force, in-group, patriotism, national identification, group identities, 9/11, leadership cues
Introduction
[A] differentiation arises between ourselves, the we-group, or in-group, and
everybody else, or the other-groups, out-groups … The relation of comradeship
and peace in the we-group and that of hostility and war towards other-groups are
correlative to each other. The exigencies of war with outsiders are what make
peace inside.
—Sumner, 1906, p. 12; quoted in Stein, 1976, p. 143
Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds / With foreign quarrels.
—Shakespeare, Henry IV, act 4, scene 3; quoted in Levy, 1989, p. 259
The idea that people unite when facing a common threat is commonplace and long-
standing. We observe, for example, that leaders sometimes enjoy a surge of support from
their citizens when the country confronts a foreign crisis or enters a war. Such surges are
known as the “rally-'round-the-flag” phenomenon. This review aims to show that, over
time, the state of knowledge has cumulated about whether, when, why, and how much
citizens “rally” in response to such events.
Now take the next logical baby step: leaders might intentionally provoke foreign crises
for their own political gain. The “wag the dog” narrative is simple and intuitive. The story
line shows up in fiction, as early as Shakespeare, in contemporary newspaper op-eds
questioning politicians’ motives, and in academic theory dating back more than a half-
century. Scholars have tried, and tried again, to empirically demonstrate the truth of such
cynical behavior on the part of leaders, whether labeled as “diversionary use of force” or
the “diversionary theory of war.”
Ironically, much of the intrigue about the rally-'round-the-flag phenomenon is tied to this
suspicion that leaders intentionally incite rallies for political gain. Yet the cumulative
evidence from empirical work on the rally effect suggests that leaders have few
incentives to do so. This review will conclude with a few observations about the paucity of
cumulative empirical knowledge within this companion theory about the diversionary use
of force.
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What We Know About the Rally-'Round-the-
Flag Phenomenon
What do we know about the rally-'round-the-flag phenomenon? Can an American
president, for example, expect an automatic surge of support every time he deploys
military units abroad? When presidential approval ratings spike in response to an
international crisis, is this a patriotic reflex by the public? Or is the surge of support
caused by a change in the information environment, as criticism by other political elites is
temporarily suppressed? Under what conditions will people unify to such an extent that
the president’s political fortunes are significantly benefited?
The academic literature on this topic—which is disproportionately focused on the United
States—has evolved over time, making corrections along the way in our understanding of
how and why rallies occur and how politically significant they are. A key feature in the
development of knowledge on this topic has to do with case selection. Early studies—
which incorporated different types of dramatic international events ranging from military
action to diplomatic initiatives to superpower summits—have been criticized for a
selectivity bias toward well-known historical episodes (see Newman & Forcehimes, 2010, p.
145). Later studies used more comprehensive data sets that had been independently
constructed (including either all U.S. deployments of military force short of kinetic
engagement or all international crises involving the United States). Finally, the in-depth
evaluation of one extraordinary event, namely, the American public’s reaction to the
attacks on September 11, 2001, helped bring more nuance to our understanding of the
rally phenomenon.
Early Scholarship
Scholars in the first wave of rally phenomenon investigations attributed it to patriotism
but, frankly, in an off-handed fashion, without looking much deeper into the psychological
or social dynamics involved. To be fair, these scholars were only tangentially interested in
the rally phenomenon; they were more focused on understanding the variety of factors
that affect presidential popularity over time. Short-term rallies of support in response to
international events were just one of these factors.
John Mueller (1970) is credited with first specifying a rally event as “1) international and 2)
involv[ing] the United States and particularly the president directly; … 3) specific,
dramatic, and sharply focused”(p. 21). The public response was seen as short-term
patriotic boosts of support that “interrupt” a president’s “general decline of popularity.”
Notably, Mueller distinguishes these favorable surges in support in response to dramatic
international happenings from the deleterious effect of an ongoing war, with the latter
adding “an additional loss” to the natural decline in presidential popularity (p. 25).
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In these early accounts, scholars described the increase in public approval of the
president as an automatic patriotic reflex. Polsby (1964), for example, observed that
“[i]nvariably, the popular response to a President during international crisis is favorable,
regardless of the wisdom of the policies he pursues” (p. 25, quoted in Mueller, 1970, p. 21).
Waltz (1967) mused: “The first effect of an international crisis is to increase the President’s
popular standing. One may wonder if this is so only when the response of the President is
firm or he otherwise gives the impression of being able to deal with the situation
effectively … It is, in fact, not necessary to add such qualifications to the statement” (p.
272, quoted in Lian & Oneal, 1993, p. 279). Lee (1977) articulated this hypothesis explicitly:
“[T]he president becomes the focus of national attention in times of crisis … symbolizing
national unity and power … The average man’s reaction will include a feeling of
patriotism in supporting presidential action” (p. 253).
Further, first-wave scholars saw the public reaction to dramatic international events as
having a significant and positive—albeit short-lived—effect on presidential approval
ratings (MacKuen, 1983; Mueller 1970). Lee (1977), for example, observed that “a President
can count on an increased popularity after a salient international event, but he cannot
expect it to last for very long” (p. 256, emphasis added). Ostrom and Simon (1985) agreed:
“Our results indicate that summitry as well as sabre rattling can be expected to enhance
the president’s public support” (p. 356).
Military actions, in particular, were thought to boost a president’s ratings. MacKuen (1983)
observed that a “direct and forceful action” can be expected “to yield a more substantial
(6.69 point) shift in judgement” (pp. 188–189). He stated that “on the whole, presidents
can improve their standing by wrapping themselves in the flag” (p. 188). Scholars began
to argue that American presidents had rational incentives to routinely use military force
for their own domestic political benefit (e.g., Ostrom & Job, 1986; see also Hess &
Orphanides, 1995).
As Oneal and Bryan (1995) summed up this early research, “most previous research
indicates that involvement in crises and other dramatic international events increases a
president’s approval rating in public opinion polls by 5 to 7 percentage points. The
selection of cases has, however, been a persistent concern” (p. 381). The second wave of
researchers, critical that the first-wave scholars had unwittingly cherry-picked high-
profile cases, were more conscientious about employing independently generated data
sets.
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A Second Wave: Casting Doubt on Patriotism and the Political
Significance of the Rally Effect
In the second wave, scholars investigated the rally phenomenon in its own right. In
general, second-wave scholarship: (a) emphasized the variability in the public’s reaction
to international crises, sometimes supportive of the president but often not; (b)
discovered the small amount, on average, in the extent to which public opinion moves; (c)
explained these movements in public opinion as a response to a changed informational
environment and partisan leadership cues; and (d) concluded that presidents have little
incentive to incite crises for political benefit.
To begin with, second-wave scholarship challenged the idea that rally events are “special
moments” of patriotism. Brody (1984) and Brody and Shapiro (1991, pp. 61–63) highlighted
how similar types of international events—say, the capture of an American vessel and
crew by North Korea and, later, a vessel and crew seized by Cambodia—could elicit a
variable public response in terms of approval ratings for the president, with a decline of
support in one instance and a surge in the other. “This difference,” Brody (1984) surmised,
“undermines the claim that the public always rallies behind the president out of some
sort of reflexive patriotic response” (p. 42).
Instead, Brody (1984) hypothesized that “the key contextual element is the nature of the
media information available to the public” (p. 42) and, more specifically, “the volume of
criticism” voiced in the media about the president (Brody & Shapiro, 1991, p. 56). The
scenario unfolds as follows: when a crisis happens suddenly, the president has a
monopoly on information; in this context, opposition leaders have an incentive to “remain
silent or to be vaguely supportive.” Reporters, whose journalistic norms and routines lead
them to reflect the debate among officials in Washington, highlight only the
administration’s narrative when critics fall silent; this creates an “unusually uncritical
mix of news about presidential performance” and sends a signal to the public that the
president is doing his job well. Finally, the public responds by temporarily increasing its
approval of the job performance by the president (Brody & Shapiro, 1991, p. 64). If,
however, the opposition leadership within Congress remains critical of the president
despite the crisis, then the media coverage will also be critical, and the public will follow
its normal partisan leadership cues with no positive rally effect. The public’s assessment
of presidential performance might even become more unfavorable. Notably, this
explanation dovetails with the academic theories on leadership cues (e.g., Zaller, 1992) and
on how the mainstream media “indexes” the Washington debate that occurs among
government officials (e.g., Bennett, 1990; Hallin, 1984; Sigal, 1973; Zaller & Chiu, 1996; see
also Entman, 2004).
This “opinion leadership” explanation gained dominance among scholars. Baker and
Oneal (2001), for example, found that “when the White House makes an effort to draw
attention to a dispute, the likelihood of a rally increases, suggesting that the public is
responding to the cues it receives from important political leaders such as the president
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and prominent members of the opposition party” (p. 682). They conclude—again largely
because the public does not automatically respond favorably to all crises—that “the
patriotism explanation for the rally effect does not appear to be well founded” (p. 682).
“The most widely accepted explanation for the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon,”
Groeling and Baum (2008) declared, “is a relative absence of elite criticism during the
initial stages of foreign crises” (p. 1065).
Beyond theorizing about why rallies occur, second-wave scholars also cast doubt on the
political benefits accruing to a president as a result of the nation’s involvement in
international crises. As mentioned earlier, the second-wave scholars criticized first-wave
scholars for deficiencies in how they selected their cases, saying the first wavers had a
bias toward well-known and prominently reported crises. Taking more rigor in case
selection, Lian and Oneal (1993), for example, used a dataset originally compiled by
Blechman and Kaplan (1978), and updated by Zelikow (1987), which included all cases when
the United States deployed the military but did not engage in combat. These are “political
uses of force.” When Lian and Oneal (1993) analyzed “all major uses of force [read
deployment of military forces without kinetic engagement] from 1950 through 1984,”
they found that the “mean change in the president’s approval rating is 0% … Even well-
publicized uses of force during a crisis boost the president’s standing only 2%–3% on
average” (p. 277).
Importantly, this small-average-rally-effect finding is replicated with other data sets that
include crises where military force is actually used. Oneal and Bryan (1995, p. 382) studied
crises from 1950 to 1985 using cases identified by the International Crisis Behavior
Project; they found an average rally of only 1.4 percent for 41 crises. Baker and Oneal
(2001) analyzed cases between 1933 and 1992 drawn from the militarized interstate
disputes (MID) data and found “the rally effect is neither as sizable nor as certain as
anecdotal accounts would contend” (p. 682). They found that “militarized disputes that
occur during a time of crisis”—but not during an ongoing war—“yield rallies of about 3.5
percentage points on average” (p. 682). “When an independently selected collection of
rally events is employed to ensure against selection bias,” they conclude, “rallies are
minor … Under the most favorable circumstances, a president cannot expect a rally
greater than 5 percentage points, with considerable uncertainty regarding this figure.
Given the risks involved, this seems insufficiently large to motivate presidents to act
irresponsibly” (p. 681).
Second-wave studies also model the conditions wherein rallies (albeit modest on average)
were likely or not likely to occur. They found that the prominence of reporting about the
event is key (Lian & Oneal, 1993, p. 294; Oneal & Bryan, 1995, p. 394). Both “White House
statements and bipartisan support for the administration’s policies” are associated with
higher rallies (Baker & Oneal, 2001, p. 661). The forceful manner with which the president
responds (James & Rioux, 1998, p. 800) and the nature and purpose of the military action
(Jentleson, 1992; Jentleson & Britton, 1998; Murray, 2006; Russett & Nincic, 1976) also matter.
Presidents are more likely to benefit from the use of military force that is framed as
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defensive or as restraining international aggressors. One robust and long-standing
empirical finding is that the public is unlikely to respond favorably to new crises and uses
of force when the nation is already at war (Baker & Oneal, 2001; Lian & Oneal, 1993;
Mueller, 1970; Oneal & Bryan, 1995; Ostrom & Job, 1986).
A few empirical findings did not fit well with the general themes from second-wave
research but are important to reflect upon in light of later scholarship. First, Baker and
Oneal (2001) noticed a category of events that do provoke significant rallies: “[O]nly those
rare instances—just 2% of the cases—in which the president leads the nation into a full-
scale war consistently resulted in sizable rallies” (p. 671). This finding raises the question
about whether a different psychological and societal dynamic might be involved in these
rare instances when the country faces a serious external threat and potentially high
domestic costs. Along these lines, Parker (1995) found a pattern in the public response to
the Persian Gulf War not easily explained by the opinion-leadership model. The rally, she
found, is not just a surge of approval for the president, but includes systemwide feelings
of allegiance: it causes a change in the public’s approval of Congress, its trust in
government, and even its opinions about the economy. Such a government-wide response
by the public looks a lot like patriotism.
Post-9/11: Not All Rallies Are Alike; Patriotism and Emotion Revisited
It was the outsized public reaction to the attacks on September 11, 2001, that revived the
patriotism explanation for the rally-'round-the-flag phenomenon, at least for certain high-
profile, threatening events that affect the whole nation. The burst of patriotism within the
United States following the terrorist attacks was palpable. The public response was a
replay—but on a bigger scale—of what Parker (1995) found in the public’s reaction during
the Persian Gulf War in 1991; the public again exhibited a surge of allegiance to the
nation, its president, and its institutions (Hetherington & Nelson, 2003, p. 40).
The role of patriotism in response to widely perceived external threats came back into
focus, this time with scholars (a) rediscovering sociological and psychological
explanations for why people unite in times of serious threat; (b) highlighting that
different events can provoke varied public emotional responses and therefore different
causal explanations, or, in other words, that rally events are heterogeneous ; and (c)
arguing that the two hypotheses about why rallies occur—patriotism and opinion
leadership—are not mutually exclusive.
To be blunt, the societal dynamics after 9/11 belied the overly simplistic treatment of
patriotism by second-wave scholarship. As noted, earlier scholars had rejected patriotism
as the source of public rallies because similar events elicited different responses. If
patriotism underlay these jumps in public approval for the president, they reasoned, the
public should respond automatically and favorably every time. But, as the response to
9/11 made clear, not all crises or conflicts provide an equal stimulus or level of emotion.
The average American citizen will respond differently to a short-term, low-cost military
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action or show of force that is out of mind as soon as it leaves the front pages (e.g., a
retaliatory air strike or a strategic deployment of aircraft carriers) than to a surprise
attack that kills thousands of civilians, collapses skyscrapers, and sets the Pentagon
ablaze. Oddly, it took this one extreme event to recapture the early insight that it is
serious collective threats—“an outside threat” which is seen “as a menace to the whole
group”—that can cause significant internal unification (Coser, 1956) and that people tend
to react to such threats by identifying with in-groups and vilifying out-groups (Sherif, 1966;
Tajfel et al., 1971).
The post-9/11 scholarship rediscovered these relevant theoretical foundations. Kam and
Kinder (2007), for example, found a link between 9/11 and the “activation of
ethnocentrism” (p. 336). Gibler, Hutchinson, and Miller (2012), in a cross-national study,
found that certain types of external threat—territorial conflict, in particular—elicit
national identification. Ariely (2016) found that countries which experience “terror or
casualties from external conflicts … exhibit higher levels of national pride” (p.1). Lai and
Reiter (2005), analyzing the rally-'round-the-flag phenomenon in Britain, found that “rallies
are most likely when there is an intense and direct threat to the national interest” (p.
255). Scholars argued that in certain contexts, such as a national emergency or a war, or
a conflict over territory, the idea of the nation comes to the fore, and people begin to
identify with the national group; when the sense of threat dies down, a different group
referent may take over, such as partisan affiliation, and an individual may again identify
with their party positions (Kam & Ramos, 2008, pp. 621–622; see also Gibler, Hutchinson,
& Miller, 2012, p. 1658). As Gibler et al. (2012) observe, “The social context provided by
external stimuli determines which group identities are relevant to the individual and,
consequently, affects who and how the individual views as out-groups” (p. 1658).
Emotions matter too. Threatening events like 9/11 provoke feelings of superiority for an
in-group and contempt for an out-group (Kam & Kinder, 2007); citizens feel anger and look
to the president, or more specifically their commander-in-chief, to respond to a
transgressor (Lambert, Schott, & Scherer, 2011; see also Huddy & Feldman, 2011). The
United States has deployed military forces hundreds of times, participated in armed
conflicts of various intensities, and faced numerous international crises, but only a few of
these instances would be expected to elicit such a strong public response as to result in
significant internal unification.
Third-wave scholars also see the patriotism and opinion-leadership hypotheses as not
being mutually exclusive. Indeed, in times of full-scale war or severe crisis, the patriotic
response of the public actually helps to explain why opposition leaders, and even the
media, refrain from criticism—they fear the public blowback that might result from
criticisms of the president (Hetherington & Nelson, 2003, p. 38). As Kam and Ramos (2008,
pp. 621–622; see also Brody, 2003, p. 12) explain, patriotism is important in the initial
reaction to an event such as 9/11, as individuals shift their self-identification to be with
the nation; but over time, as the threat recedes, individuals shift back to their partisan
identities. In this second phase, an increase in cues from partisan leaders heard through
the media help to explain the decay of the rally over time. “Although the opinion
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leadership school seems less persuasive than patriotism school in accounting for the
origins of rally effects,” Hetherington and Nelson (2003) observe, “it goes a long way
toward explaining the duration of rallies once they occur” (p. 38). Likewise, Colaresi (2007)
incorporates aspects of both explanations, arguing that if there is reason to suspect a
president of creating a crisis for personal benefit (i.e., if the president is losing popularity,
facing a scandal, or nearing an election), then the public is likely to be skeptical of his
motives and less likely to rally. This does not mean that patriotism is unimportant, only
that patriotism is “not blind” (p. 131). People can be both patriotic and discerning.
Overall, the post-9/11 scholarship helps clarify a distinction that needs to be made
between the “diversionary use of force”—which includes the deployment of military
forces short of war or low-level conflicts—and the “diversionary theory of war”—which
would seem to refer to much more intense international conflict. And looking back at the
roots of the external-conflict-creates-internal-cohesion hypothesis, a threatening episode
with magnitude seems implied, not minor military events or smaller international crises.
Again, Coser (1956) stated the conditions for unification: “as long as the outside threat is
perceived to concern the entire group … conflict has an integrative rather than a
disruptive effect” (p. 94, emphasis added). To capture the attention and generate concern
of the whole nation requires a big event. As 9/11 highlighted, such extreme events can
cause internal cohesion and produce a politically meaningful rally.
A Comment on the Diversionary Use of Force
and the Diversionary Theory of War
The idea that leaders might intentionally create conflicts with other nations to divert their
citizens’ attention away from domestic problems and to gain political support for
themselves is intuitively compelling. As the rally-'round-the-flag scholarship shows,
however, leaders can’t expect much of a public rally from any but the most spectacular of
international crises, such as full-scale war. But to instigate a major conflict, one that
affects the whole country, obviously carries its own risks. Ongoing war with casualties
can soon become corrosive to a president’s popularity (Eichenberg, 2005; Larson, 1996;
Mueller, 1970, 1973; Ostrom & Job, 1986), as was seen with George W. Bush and the Iraq War.
The effects of short popular wars do not necessarily have staying power to carry the next
election, as was seen with George H. W. Bush’s failure to win re-election after the Persian
Gulf War (see also Chiozza & Goemans, 2004). So if manageable conflicts short of war
result in small, fleeting, unreliable rallies, while larger-scale conflicts will provoke an
initial rally but are uncontrollable and potentially damaging in the long term, then there
is little incentive for the president to create crises for political gain.

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Hence it is not surprising that the empirical evidence gained after scores of studies about
whether leaders engage in diversionary behavior is so mixed, contradictory, and
inconclusive. Clearly, it is not for want of trying.
Focusing on American presidents, scholars have tried and then tried again to find
consistent evidence that domestic political considerations routinely inspire presidential
decisions to deploy force, but without clear cumulative results (e.g., Gowa, 1998; Meernik,
2001; Meernik &Waterman, 1996; Mitchell & Moore, 2002). Some scholars have found a
connection to presidents’ approval ratings (DeRouen, 1995; Foster & Palmer, 2006; James &
Oneal, 1991; Ostrom & Job, 1986), while others have not (DeRouen, 2000; Howell &
Pevehouse, 2005; Mitchell & Moore, 2002; Moore & Lanoue, 2003). Some have linked conflict
initiation with the electoral calendar (e.g., Hess & Orphanides, 1995); but other scholars
dispute this connection (DeRouen, 2000; Gowa, 1998; Howell & Pevehouse, 2005; Moore &
Lanoue, 2003). With more consistency, scholars find a connection with a troubled economy
(DeRouen, 2000; Fordham, 1998; Howell & Pevehouse, 2005; James & Oneal, 1991); but even
here, others do not (DeRouen, 1995; Gowa, 1998). Case studies, too, fail to offer compelling
accounts of American presidents deploying force to divert the public’s attention from
domestic troubles (Blomdahl, 2016; Hendrickson, 2002; Hall, Hendrickson, & Polak, 2013; see
also Cramer, 2006). Of course, American presidents do take advantage of the media
opportunity once a conflict is initiated to cultivate an image of strength and competence.
The conclusion that the diversionary use of force is an outright “myth” (Meernik &
Waterman, 1996)—if interpreted to mean that diversion never happens—might be too
strong; instead, it might be rare. This proposition gains credence when you stop to think
(a) that leaders would need a plausible international opportunity to intentionally cause a
diversionary conflict (Meernik, 1994) or risk appearing politically motivated, which would
only worsen their political fortunes (Colaresi, 2007; Lian & Oneal, 1993, p. 278); (b) that
other domestic actors (such as the opposition party in Congress in the U.S. case) may
constrain executive decisions about the use of military force, particularly if it is a full-
scale war requiring authorization and funding (Howell & Pevehouse, 2005); (c) that it takes
an actual war—or alternative spectacular event that affects the whole country—to achieve
much internal cohesion; (d) that leaders have less extreme options available to address
domestic problems or to distract attention; (e) that given the risks of war, a leader’s
domestic situation would need to be desperate; and (f) that even then, only certain
personality types—certainly not all leaders—would involve the country in a crisis and
send citizens into harm’s way for their own political gain (Foster & Keller, 2010, 2014).
17

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Conclusion
The rally-'round-the-flag scholarship has cumulated empirical evidence over time, at least
for the United States. We know that rallies do accompany international crises (e.g.,
DeRouen, 2000, 326; James & Rioux, 1998; see also Tir & Singh, 2013). A positive rally effect
is associated with a variety of conditions, such as how prominently the event is reported,
whether the White House actively frames the issue, the amount of criticism from
opposition elites, and whether the country is at war or has recently concluded a war. The
sizes of such rallies are variable, but on average, rallies in response to the deployment of
force or international crises are small (Baker & Oneal, 2001; James & Rioux, 1998; Lian &
Oneal, 1993; Oneal & Bryan, 1995). Only wars (or other spectacular events like a large-scale
terrorist attack) consistently provoke sizable rallies (Baker & Oneal, 2001, p. 671; see also
Lai & Reiter, 2005; Rogov, 2016) and these big events elicit an emotional reaction from
citizens (Lambert, Schott, & Scherer, 2010) and a self-identification with the nation (Kam &
Ramos, 2008; Parker, 1995; Rogov, 2016). Both of the most common hypotheses—patriotism
and opinion leadership—are helpful in explaining why rallies occur and why they taper off
over time.
Overall, the evidence about the rally-'round-the-flag phenomenon that has accreted over
time helps to explain why its companion theory, the diversionary use of force, has not
fared as well.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to Nora Khatcherian and Kate Schaefer for excellent research assistance.
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Notes:
(1.) One famous use of this logic was by President Reagan in a speech to the United
Nations General Assembly on September 21, 1987: “In our obsession with antagonisms of
the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we
need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I
occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing
an alien threat from outside this world.”
(2.) One subtheme in the rally literature focuses on disaggregating the public response by
partisanship (see Baum, 2002; Behr, 2006; Callaghan & Virtanen, 1993; Edwards &
Swenson, 1997; Norrander & Wilcox, 1993; Sigelman & Conover, 1981). This topic is
beyond the scope of this review.
(3.) Mueller (1970) incorporates six categories of cases, including sudden military
interventions (e.g., the Korean War or Bay of Pigs); major military developments during
war (e.g., China’s intervention in Korea); major diplomatic developments (e.g., the Cuban
Missile Crisis or the Truman Doctrine); and technological challenges (e.g., Sputnik);
summit meetings between the president and head of the Soviet Union; and,
controversially, even the honeymoon period at the start of an administration.
(4.) Lee (1977, p. 253) offers another hypothesis as well: that the rally of approval could
be a response to the unusual information environment wherein only the president has
information about what is happening so others give him “the benefit of the doubt” until
the situation becomes clearer.
(5.) Lee (1977, p. 253) characterizes the events that cause rallies as follows: outbreak of
war or military crises that call for the actual or potential use of troops; the end of war or
resolution of an international conflict; summit meetings; salient new initiatives;
international setbacks; and events directly involving the president, such as assassination
attempts.
(6.) MacKuen (1983, pp. 188–189) does acknowledge that it will not be easy for a
president to set out to improve his standing because many events, such as summit

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meetings, yield small returns and fade quickly, and uses of force yield responses that are
not always positive.
(7.) Brody and Shapiro (1991) reduce the types of events suggested by Mueller down to
three: “sudden American interventions,” “major diplomatic developments,” and “dramatic
technological developments” (p. 60).
(8.) When the intelligence ship Pueblo was captured by North Korea in 1968, President
Johnson’s poll numbers dropped by 7 percentage points. But when the freighter
Mayaguez was captured by Cambodia in 1975, President Ford gained 11 points after an
ill-fated rescue attempt and the bombing of the Cambodian mainland (Brody & Shapiro,
1991, pp. 61–62).
(9.) Baum and Groeling (2005) and Groeling and Baum (2008) focus on the dynamics of
that process, illustrating a messier and more nuanced account about the extent to which
the opposition elite remains silent during crises and the extent to which the media
mirrors the actual official debate in Washington.
(10.) Major uses of force in this data set involve “a strategic nuclear unit, two or more
aircraft carrier task groups, more than a battalion of ground forces, or one or more
combat wings” (Lian & Oneal, 1993, p. 280).
(11.) “A foreign policy crisis meets three criteria: National decision makers perceive a
threat to basic values, are aware there is a finite time for response, and believe there is a
high probability of involvement in military hostilities” (Oneal & Bryan, 1995, p. 381).
(12.) The Correlates of War project defines an MID as “a set of interactions between and
among states involving threats to use military force, displays of military force or actual
uses of military force” (Gochman & Moaz, 1984, p. 587; cited in Baker & Oneal, 2001, p.
669). For a critique of the MID data, see Fordham and Sarver (2001).
(13.) For example, Lian and Oneal (1993) concluded that “a favorable response by the
general public to a use of force is more likely when the United States is involved in a
severe crisis and the president’s actions are prominently reported. In addition, a
president’s popularity is more apt to be boosted when the country is not at war or
fatigued by war, when his popularity is low initially, and when there is bipartisan support
for his actions” (p. 294).
(14.) Rogov (2016, p. 34) discusses a similar response in Russia in reaction to the Russian
annexation of Crimea.
(15.) This word as applied to rallies was first used by Lai and Reiter (2005, p. 255).
(16.) The quotes are from Stein’s (1976, p. 145) discussion of Coser (1956). See also Levy
(1989).

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(17.) Scholars seem to be looking for diversionary tendencies in increasingly narrow and
specific contexts (e.g., Brule & Hwang, 2010; Levy & Vakili, 1992).
Shoon Murray
School of International Service, American University