Rallying Around the Flag? Political Parties ’ Reactions to Terrorist Acts

Republican and Democratic parties stood side by side on the steps of the Capitol pledging their support to Georges W. Bush in a rare display of unity.1 In the week that followed the tragic events of 9/11, Bush’s public approval ratings rose from 51 % to an unprecedented 86%.2 With a large support both in Congress and across the nation, the rally around the flag was complete and of a proportion unseen in the United States since the attack on Pearl Harbor some 60 years before. Rallies around the flag are not uncommon in times of foreign policy crises and have been widely studied, as will be shown below, though mostly from a US perspective. However, studies on the reactions of public opinion and of political elites and parties to acts of terror have been scant, even after the events of September 2001.3 This paper attempts to fill the gap by analysing political parties ’ reactions to terrorism in fiv