The Puzzling Rally-round-the-Flag Phenomenon

The first chapter is an extended introduction. It presents the book’s focal empirical puzzle (i.e., why did only a few military actions and security crises in the United States generate rallies?) and then summarizes the book’s argument about the conditions under which rally periods have emerged in the United States and the processes that have generated these rallies. The next section sets the stage for understanding the emergence of rallies by defining and operationalizing the “rally-round-the-flag” effect, identifying the characteristics of people who rally around the flag, and discussing several background conditions that make rally outcomes either sizable and durable or weaker and short-lived. The following two sections explain the political significance of the rally phenomenon and discuss the broader contribution of the book to several fields of research. The final part outlines the book’s structure.