‘Rally round the flag’: the COVID-19 crisis and trust in the national government

Abstract

During international crises, trust in government is expected to increase irrespective of the wisdom of the policies it pursues. This has been called a 'rally-round-the-flag' effect. This article examines whether the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in such a rally effect. Using multi-wave panel surveys conducted in Austria and France starting from March 2020, in the article it is examined how government trust was affected by the perceived threats to the nation's health and economy created by the pandemic as well as by the perceived appropriateness of the government's crisis response. A strong rally effect is shown in Austria, where trust was closely tied to perceived health risks, but faded away quickly over time. Perceptions of government measures mattered, too, while perceived economic threat only played a minor role. In France, in contrast, a strong partisan divide is found and no rally effect. KEYWORDS COVID-19; trust in government; rally effect; panel data; threat perceptions; crisis management During international crises, support for the government is expected to increase even regardless of the wisdom of the policies it pursues (Mueller 1970(Mueller , 1973. This effect is commonly called the 'rally-round-the-flag' effect. As international crises create unexpected and profound challenges to the status quo, such an increase in support for the government helps politicians in objectively bad times to enact specific emergency policies (Davis and Silver 2004). While political support is critical for society's functioning even under normal circumstances (Zmerli and van der Meer 2017), trust in the government in times of crisis becomes ever more

Trust in Science, Perceived Media Exaggeration About COVID-19, and Social Distancing Behavior

“…Generally, in times of COVID-19, people tend to “rally around the flag” reporting stronger trust in politicians and more satisfaction with the government than before the COVID-19 crisis [e.g., ( 32 )]. Additionally, satisfaction with healthcare has not worsened in the course of the pandemic ( 33 ).…”

What Is the Flag We Rally Around? Trust in Information Sources at the Outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Latvia

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, differences in the rally 'round the flag' effect across countries have been attributed to a range of factors. Studying Austria and France, Kritzinger et al (2021) demonstrate that the perceived threat to health has been the most important variable for augmented government support in Austria, whereas the perceived threat to health has not been essential in France-instead, the partisan alignment with the position or opposition parties determined the level of trust (Kritzinger et al 2021). In addition, in both countries, the perception on the appropriateness of the government measures has correlated positively with trust (Kritzinger et al 2021).…”

“…This effect refers to cases when, during a crisis, governments tend to receive higher public trust than in routine situations. The rally 'round the flag' effect has been observed in many countries at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic (The Economist 2020; Bol et al 2021;Baekgaard et al 2020;Kritzinger et al 2021;Cunningham 2020). Latvia offers an outstanding example of this effect during the first wave of the pandemic (from March to September 2020): 51% of the population trusted the government as an information source in September 2020.…”

“…Our study contributes to understanding of significant differences in the rally 'round the flag' effect between countries even in similar epidemiological circumstances. Previous research demonstrates that various factors, i.e., perceived severity of the COVID-19 pandemic (Cunningham 2020), perceived threat to health, or partisanship alignment (Kritzinger et al 2021) have contributed to political support in Western and Nordic democracies. However, less is known about the rally 'round the flag' effect in Eastern Europe, especially countries with initially low levels of trust to government.…”

The ‘Work and Corona’ Dashboard

“…With these measures, the ACPP already set high standards of transparency and data sharing. The project team also published a set of scientific papers on various topics (e.g Bobzien and Kalleitner 2021;Eberl, Huber, and Greussing 2021;Kritzinger et al 2021;Paul, Eberl, and Partheymüller 2021)…”