Historical Examples
The effect has been examined within the context of nearly every major foreign policy crises since World War II. Some notable examples:
- Cuban Missile Crisis: President John F. Kennedy's approval rating in early October 1962 was at 61%. By November, after the crisis had passed, Kennedy's approval rose to 73%. The spike in approval peaked in December 1962 at 75%. Kennedy's approval rating slowly decreased again until it reached the pre-crisis level of 61% in June 1963.
- Iran hostage crisis: President Jimmy Carter quickly gained 26 percentage points, jumping from 32 to 58% approval following the initial seizure of the U.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.
- Operation Desert Storm (Persian Gulf War): President George H. W. Bush was rated at 61% approval in December 1990, but following the success of Operation Desert Storm, Bush enjoyed a peak 89% approval rating in February 1991. From there, Bush's approval rating slowly decreased, reaching the pre-crisis level of 61% in October 1991.
- Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush received an unprecedented increase in his approval rating. On September 10, Bush had a Gallup Poll rating of 51%. By September 15, his approval rate had increased by 34% 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 to begin the War in Iraq.
- Escalation of China-Japan territorial dispute in 2012: The dispute concerns the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands (called ‘Diaoyudao’ in the People`s Republic of China). It has been suggested that Japanese and Chinese governments have utilized “popular nationalism as a state-led strategy to bolster its legitimacy." Furthermore, in China, “the government strategic in whether it allows nationalist protesters to mobilize, weighing the diplomatic and domestic benefits of tolerance versus repression”, in order to further political objectives.
Read more about this topic: Rally 'round The Flag Effect
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