Partisanship, Militarized International Conflict, and Electoral Support for the Incumbent

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912917727369
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Jaroslav Tir,Shane P. Singh
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917727369

Political Research Quarterly

2018, Vol. 71(1) 172 –183

© 2017 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912917727369

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Article

Introduction

A number of studies consider the impact of foreign events

on incumbents’ political fortunes (e.g., Aldrich, Sullivan,

and Borgida 1989; Berinsky 2009; Blechman and Kaplan

1978; Brace and Hinckley 1992; James and Rioux 1998;

Lian and Oneal 1993; Mueller 1973; Oneal and Bryan

1995; Page and Shapiro 1983). Present in many of them

is the rally around the flag argument, which maintains

that international militarized confrontations boost incum-

bent support (e.g., DeRouen 1995, 2000; James and

Oneal 1991; Levy 1998; Russett 1990). In our view, how-

ever, the effects of militarized conflicts on incumbent

support have not been adequately examined. First, most

existing empirical examinations focus on the United

States and were conducted some time ago; whether their

findings extend to other contexts is unknown. Second, the

cross-national studies that have been conducted almost

exclusively investigate whether or not an incumbent

retains office (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson

1995; Chiozza and Goemans 2003; Gartner and Segura

1998; Miller and Elgün 2011; Williams, Brulé, and Koch

2010); in doing so, they ignore the issue of how individu-

als respond to foreign militarized confrontations in terms

of their voting behavior. Such confrontations may well

produce more nuanced effects than is detectable by

macro-level variables, and inferences about how disputes

shape a leader’s standing with the public can thus at best

be deduced indirectly from works focused solely at the

country level. Furthermore, such studies cannot take into

account theoretically important individual-level factors.

In particular, the voting behavior literature demon-

strates that one’s partisan identification can serve to

“screen” perceptions of incumbent performance (e.g.,

Healy and Malhotra 2013). This points to the necessity of

using individual-level data to examine whether partisan

attachments also condition the impact of militarized con-

flict on incumbent support. This is a conspicuously

important issue to consider, as the diversionary scholar-

ship (see, for example, Levy 1998; Oneal and Tir 2006

for extensive reviews) argues that incumbents can stir a

rally around the flag effect by initiating a militarized con-

flict with another state. Such arguments suggest that a

727369PRQXXX10.1177/1065912917727369Political Research QuarterlySingh and Tir

research-article2017

1University of Georgia, Athens, USA

2University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Corresponding Author:

Shane P. Singh, Department of International Affairs, University of

Georgia, 303 Candler Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA.

Email: singh@uga.edu

Partisanship, Militarized International

Conflict, and Electoral Support for the

Incumbent

Shane P. Singh1 and Jaroslav Tir2

Abstract

Comparative politics scholarship often neglects to consider how militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) shape political

behavior. In this project, we advance an argument that considers voter responses to international conflict at the

individual level. In particular, we consider how the well-known conditioning effects of partisanship manifest in relation

to militarized international conflict. Examining individual- and macro-level data across ninety-seven elections in forty-

two countries over the 1996–2011 period, we find consistent evidence of militarized conflict impacting vote choice.

This relationship is, however, moderated by partisanship, conflict side (initiator or target), and conflict hostility level.

Among non-copartisan voters, the incumbent benefits the most electorally from initiating low-hostility MIDs or when

the country is a target of a high-hostility MID; the opposite scenarios (initiator of a high-hostility MID or target of a

low-hostility MID) lead to punishment among this voter group. Copartisans, meanwhile, tend to either maintain or

intensify their support in most scenarios we examine; when a country is targeted in a low-hostility MID, copartisan

support erodes mildly.

Keywords

voting behavior, partisanship, conflict, diversion, rally