Public support for a leader jumps at the onset of an international crisis, then decays.
Mueller's 1970 finding. Bush's approval rose about 35 points after 11 September 2001 and decayed over two years. The effect is reliable, and its decay rate is what makes it a poor basis for policy.
In practice
- A government polling badly in June is twenty points up in July after a national emergency, and back where it started by the spring.
- A chief executive's internal approval jumps after a crisis they handled visibly, and returns to baseline before the consequences arrive.