Predispositions and Public Support for the President During the War on Terrorism

Abstract

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath offer a rare opportunity to examine how presidential approval responds to a sudden and severe national security crisis. I utilize the 2000-2002 National Election Studies panel to track change in public attitudes toward George W. Bush over the first two years of his presidency. An advantage of using panel data is that it allows me to go beyond aggregate change in presidential approval to examine how change is related to defense policy predispositions and prior political awareness. I find important differences. Over these two years, those high in political awareness experience priming of their defense predispositions but very little rally effect. In contrast, those low in political awareness experience a rally in support for Bush but very little priming. These results reaffirm that those with different levels of political awareness respond to dramatic messages in distinct ways.

Americans respond politically to 9/11: Understanding the impact of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath.

“…The most knowledgeable Americans became more polarized in their views of Bush on the basis of their initial support for military spending in 2000, consistent with the TMT notion of ideological intensification, resulting in no net gain in his ratings. In contrast, less knowledgeable Americans became more supportive of Bush regardless of their initial position on defense spending, in line with the notion of a broad conservative shift (Ladd, 2007). "…”

Affective Priming in Political Campaigns: How Campaign-Induced Emotions Prime Political Opinions

“…The longitudinal perspective is employed because cognitive priming effects are generally assumed to manifest themselves in an increasing impact of the primed content over time (e.g., Krosnick & Kinder, 1990;Ladd, 2007). We are thus proposing that the influence of the issue-related arguments on judgment should increase in the course of the campaign.…”

“…Estimating a regression model for each wave enabled us to investigate the changing impact of our predictors on the attitude toward the corporate taxation reform over time. By comparing the regression weights of predictors between waves, we follow a standard procedure in priming research (Bartels, 2006;Krosnick & Kinder, 1990;Ladd, 2007).…”

Policy popularity: The Arizona immigration law

“…The "rally 'round the flag" effect, sparked by a dramatic international events, invariably boosts approval, if only temporarily (Edwards and Swenson 1997;Kernell 1978;Ladd 2007;Lai and Reiter 2005;Kam and Ramos 2008;Norpoth and Sidman 2007;Wood 2009). While international events rarely impinge on state governors, the surge-and-decline pattern of a rally effect may apply to a governor acting in response to a crisis with an international dimension.…”