RAPID: Comparative Study of Rally Effects During the Ukraine War

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Scholars and journalists have long recognized a phenomenon called “rally ‘round the flag” in which citizens support their country’s leaders during a time of crisis. In the current era, however, increased political polarization may mean citizens never support leaders from an opposition party regardless of national and world events. We investigate whether a new formulation of the “rally ‘round the flag” effect has emerged: “rally ‘round democracy” – i.e., crises now lead to an increase in support for democratic principles among citizens in democratic countries instead of increased support for political leaders in those countries. We collect survey and social media data during the Russian invasion of Ukraine to study the opinions of citizens in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany and the rhetoric used by political leaders in those countries during wartime. This unique dataset of public opinion and elite rhetoric is available for use by other researchers. We conduct a multi-country, multi-wave design to test the emergence and responsiveness of “rally ‘round the flag” and "rally 'round the flag" patterns and effects during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since the research is conducted during the conflict, the concurrent social media analysis allows us to speak to differences between the public and “opinion leaders” during a crisis. The survey takes place over three waves – two during the crisis, and one after the crisis largely concludes (or becomes significantly less salient in each of the three countries). We use social media to capture elite rhetoric in each country to track what they say about the crisis and their country’s political leadership. We merge the social media data with our surveys to contextualize our participants’ media environments. In sum, this project allows us to open the “black box” that often hides public opinion on foreign policy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.