The rally ‘round the flag effect in third parties: the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACT Immediately after the onset of a war, the popularity of the head of a warring government suddenly surges. Known as the “rally ‘round the flag effect”, this phenomenon may well spill over to third-party countries that are not actually at war. This paper specifically studies the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We exploited the results of surveys in Czechia, Japan, and Uruguay that were already underway when the conflict began. We identify the indirect rally effect of the war on citizens' support for the party of the head of government by comparing respondents who joined the surveys before or after the outbreak of the war. We found that the war increased approval for the national leader's party by around three percentage points in Japan and six percentage points in Uruguay, which is comparable to the size of direct rally effects. However, this was not the case in Czechia.