When the rally-around-the-flag effect disappears, or: when the COVID-19 pandemic becomes “normalized”

Abstract

ABSTRACT The rally-around-the-flag effect describes the tendency of public opinion to become more favourable toward political leaders in times of crises. Political leaders rarely can exchange this initial rally-around-effect into long-term support, however. The central question addressed in this paper is, why political leaders cannot maintain this increase in support over time. Based on three-wave panel data collected during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden (N = 1716), this paper investigates why political leaders cannot maintain initial popular support in the long run. Empirically, we find that perceptions of how Sweden is affected by the crisis and political ideology are both important drivers to understand the declining government approval following a rally-around-the-flag effect.