The “rally ‘round the flag” effect in Latin America during the current crisis
The publication “American Political Science Review” was released in 1970, in it was a chapter written by John Muller entitled “Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson”, which gave rise to one of the most studied theories in the field of Science Politics and International Relations: the rally ‘round the flag effect.
The theory developed by Mueller, still used to analyze different affairs in the political arena, emphasized that this effect was the result of an event that should contain three characteristics: being international, involving the United States and its president and being specific, dramatic and sharply focused. Thus, Mueller managed to define this concept as the increase in popular support, in the short term, from the government or the head of government during periods of international crisis, creating a foreign policy factor.
From Mueller’s thinking, various academics developed other theories around it, leading to a debate between two schools regarding the total definition: the Patriotism School of Thought, which maintains that in times of crisis, society (the American people) sees the political leader (the President) as the embodiment of national unity; on the other hand, the Opinion Leadership School considers that this manifestation stems from the lack of criticism from members of the opposition or from political checks and balances against the leader.
Despite being a theory applied from its birth to various situations in American public life, for the purposes of this article the bases of this theory will be applied to the current political situation within the Latin American region.
With the explosion of the economic, health and social crises, this concept has returned to international politics analysis due to the political strengthening that practically all leaders around the world have acquired. In the Latin American region, plagued by the dramatic fall in the economy and the harassing presence of Covid-19, there has been an increase in the role that presidents play in the public life of their countries with virtually no opposition.
The rally ‘round the flag effect shows that this theory is visible in the Latin American region as popular support from political leaders increases due to a crisis that puts the national security of these countries at risk.
Based on that it is fair to say that the current health crisis benefited, first-hand, the popularity of Latin American leaders, although the variation of this increase in popularity varies when comparing different presidents, from the formidable rise of Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra that raised his popularity above 75% to the increase that Chilean President Sebastián Piñera had, although it represents growth in his popularity, low levels of it still persist, towards 19%.
Practically all the leaders of the countries that had social movements in late 2019 saw their popularity increase. Such is the case of Colombian President Iván Duque, who, with the social outburst that led people to the streets to protest against the labor and pension reforms, sank his popularity to approximately 25%. But during the coronavirus crisis, the president saw his popularity rise above 55%.
The same situation was experienced by the Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno who after the protests that were originated in Ecuador after the elimination of a fuel subsidy that lowered the popularity of the president below 15 percent points but health crisis came through to provoque a rise in Mr. Moreno’s popularity which was rose above 20%.
The increase in the popularity of South American presidents is well represented in other cases such as Jeanine Áñez, who after her rise to power in Bolivia after the resign of Evo Morales, didn’t have broad popular support and saw her popularity increased slightly by around 2% during the coronavirus crisis; Sebastián Piñera, who touched really deep levels in his popularity after the protests carried out by the Chilean population in late 2019 still got increased his popularity by 10% amid the current crisis; Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who saw his popularity increase by more than 25%, and Uruguayan President, also recently promoted, Luis Lacalle Pou saw his popular approval increased by around 10%.
Central American presidents like the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele, the Guatemalan Alejandro Giammattei and the Dominican Danilo Medina also saw their popularity increased during the health crisis.
However, the theory is not completely applicable throughout the region because Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saw their popularity decrease during this crisis, due to the ineffective response they gave to the health crisis that has led their countries to be at the top of the list of countries with the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 and the lack of technical and specific actions to rescue the economy from a major collapse in the Mexican case.
The theory also explains the behavior of the Latin American population, which not only brought an increase in the levels of popularity of most of the leaders of the region, but also increased the power of these leaders to create responses to the health crisis , taking its governed to obligatory actions to prevent the spread of the virus, which have led, in the Salvadoran, Mexican and Colombian cases, to episodes of violence against the civilian population for not respecting the presidential order.
The conduct of increasing the confidence of the citizens towards their political leaders during times of crisis gives them a certain immunity to protests and generates spikes of authoritarianism by conferring greater powers on the political leader. Such is the Venezuelan case, in which the mandatory quarantine imposed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro allowed the Bolivarian regime to buying time and rethink the strategy they will carry out to sustain the volatile political situation that has confronted civil society with the government of Mr. Maduro.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that, in the absence of efficient governments in the region, it is the obligation of the citizens to seek mechanisms that guarantee democratic decision-making by their governments and prevent political leaders from completely absorbing all levels of power during times of crisis.
Similarly, we can conclude that the rally ‘round the flag effect is applicable in the Latin American context, but its analysis should be extended to the consequences that the decisions derived from the increase in popularity and confidence in the leaders will bring to civil society once the crisis is over. Time will determine the result that this effect will have in the Latin American region.
Popularity numbers were extracted from studies made by Directorio Legislativo, BBC World and Latinobarometro.
