Burbach, “Rally ‘Round the Flag, or Run Away!”
Page 29
• VietnamSqrt is the square root of the cumulative casualties (in thousands) in the
Vietnam War (starting spring of 1965), during Johnson’s term; zero all other
periods. This is to account for the steady decline in Johnson’s ratings (despite
decent economic numbers) as the conflict progressed; Mueller advocated the log
of casualties but the decline is more gradual than that implies; square root of
casualties looks to be a better fit.
• Watergate is a dummy variable for the Watergate scandal. It takes on 1 at the
time of the first connections of the scandal to White House staffers in the spring
of 1973, and 2 after the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October of 1973 until
Nixon’s resignation.
• IranContra is a dummy variable for the Iran-Contra scandal; 1 from November of
1986 until the end of August 1987 (when the Congressional hearings concluded).
Use of force specifications
Several specifications were used to test the hypotheses developed above. For
Hypothesis 1 (negative reactions to uses of force) and as a general point of comparison to
earlier “rally effect” studies, the model simply included the event flags (1 in periods
events took place):
70
Equation 3 – General Reaction to Uses of Force
t
t
Interval
t
t
t
Interval
t
t
t
Force
EVENTS
MAJOR
Force
b
Force
EVENTS
ALL
Force
a
2
1
1
2
1
1
*
_
*
:
3
*
_
*
:
3
φ
θ
φ
θ
−
−
+
=
+
=
Hypotheses 2 and 3 were tested together by running regressions including the
periodization variables (post-Vietnam, Gulf), and the success and ground troop
characteristics (shown for MAJOR_EVENTS, a similar regression was run using
ALL_EVENTS). Multiplying the sum of the variables and coefficients by
70
For all use of force specifications, all variables were zero in periods when no event occurred. That is,
even though the POST_VIETNAM variable would be true for every poll after 1975, it only took on a value
when an event occurred. A functional equivalent would be include another term in the use of force
equation, multiplying the sum of the variables and coefficients by ALL_EVENTS (or MAJOR_EVENTS)
Convention