EIectomlStudiez (1987). 6.1. 3-16

The Falklands War and Government Popularity in Britain: Rally without

Consequence or Surge without Decline?

HELMUT NORPOTH *

Department of Pohtical Science, State University of New York, Stony Brook,

NY 11794, USA

There is little agreement on what war does to government support in the mass public. The examples of American public opinion on Korea and Vietnam

contradict the notion that war enhances such support. This paper probes the effect of the Falklands War of 1982 on the popularity of Prime Minister Thatcher and the Conservative Party. Four basic intervention models are estimated by way of a Box-Tiao time series analysis using monthly popularity measures from June 1979 to July 1985. The evidence favors the gradual-temporary type of model: a surge of government support distributed over the three months of the war is followed by a slow decline. Mrs Thatcher’s gains register earlier and more strongly than those of her party. Nevertheless. the gains of the Conservative Party, according to this analysis, prove worth approximately six points in the 1983 general election.

How war affects government support in the mass public is a question that has an odd ring to it in the nuclear age. Who should one ask about the popularity of which government after the next war? Public concern with peace is so paramount these days that the word ‘war’ has all but vanished from political discourse, except for the need to avoid ‘it’. There is hardly a government that advocates a policy of war under that name.

To be sure, war between the superpowers has long ago entered the realm of the unthink- able. Nevertheless, war among more ordinary nations occurs and reoccurs with numbing frequency. Likewise, the superpowers themselves keep getting involved with non-super- powers in military confrontations. While it may have prevented a war between the United States and the Soviet Union the nuclear age has by no means abolished war. How the public

reacts to a war and to its government pursuing it remains an intriguing question. Does war strengthen popular support for the incumbent government and pay electoral dividends? Or is the opposite to be expected?

* I am grateful to Robert Worcester of MORI for making available to me the data analyzed in this paper. For the few time points (June, July and December of 1979) for which no MORI data existed the corresponding Gallup data were substituted. Of course, neither MORI nor Gallup bears any responsibility for the analysis and interpretation of these data. The research reported here originated during one of the author’s visits to the ECPR summer school at the University of Essex. The hospitality of the summer school is greatly appreciated. For support and comments, I am grateful to Eric Tanenbaum, Eric Roughly, David Sanders, Friedhelm Meier, Jorgen Rasmussen, John Mueller, Kathy Frankovic and Sam Kernell.

0261-3794/87/01/0003-14/$03.00 0 1987 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd

4 The Faik!ands Wu and Got’ernment Popularity in Britain

It is not far-fetched to assume that politicians themselves ponder those questions and that their answers may influence their actions in certain situations. The opinion that military actions enhance government popularity may sway a political leader to pursue a warlike

policy in an international crisis. Especially so if popular support for the government in office leaves room for improvement.

The war over the Falklands in 1982 is a natural candidate for a study of these questions. On the British side it provides the requisite data-continuous monitoring of public opinion before. during and after the event (war). Such a data base is not available for the Argentinian side, or for that matter for most wars. Britain’s reaction thus offers a rare test case that has met with considerable attention (Worcester and Jenkins, 1982; Dunleavy and Husbands, 1985; Clarke et al.. 1986; Mischler et al., 1986). This paper presents resu!ts of an ‘inter- vention analysis’ (Box and Tiao. 1975; Hibbs, 1977: McCleary and Hay, 1980: hIcDowal1 et al., 1980; Lewis-Beck, 1986) with monthly data on the popularity of the Thatcher government from June 1979 to July 1985.

Some Lessons from Previous Wars

For a phenomenon as frequent and enormous as war, our understanding of its effects on public opinion, curiously, is rather weak and sketchy. There are good reasons to think that war enhances such support. but also good arguments to the contrary. War. for one thing, is said to generate a strong tribal ‘we-they’ feeling among ordinary citizens of one nation against the enemy nation. The sense of being threatened from the outside makes people forget the tensions and conflicts within one’s own society. The incumbent government rises above political parties and stresses its role as the nation’s representative. The average citizen is called upon to rally round the flag.

International crises are known to have generated such ‘rally round the flag‘ reactions in the American public (Mueller. 1973; Kernell, 1978: Brody. 1984 and 1986). Presidents have often benefited from those rallies, as for example Jimmy Carter did in late 1979 after the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran, or Kennedy in the fall of 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis (Gallup. 1980). Success or failure of the president’s policy apparently

do not determine the public’s willingness to rally round their president, although elite reaction, as portrayed by the media, to the international events plays an important role

(Brody, 1984). International crises, including the onset of war. tend to draw to the government’s side

portions of the electorate that until then did not support its leaders and parties. To be sure, not every voter gets caught up in that tide. Someone who strongly identifies with an opposition party may experience more resistance than someone with weaker or no ties at all. A certain reservoir of additional support probably exists at all times, which the government may be able to exploit. but also a ceiling. Moreover. the added support gained in a crisis often vanishes as the crisis is settled and fades from public concern.

The main argument against the hypothesis that war enhances government support concerns the fact that wars are costly. They require sacrifices, in lives and finances. Wars bring few personal advantages to most people. As the disruptive forces set in motion by war multiply, the tensions within a nation are felt more keenly and public support for the war is being strained.

One would perhaps notice the drop in public support at those times more readily were it not for the ways in which governments over the centuries have muzzled expressions of doubt and opposition regarding the wars they were conducting. War is not called the ‘midwife of revolution’ for nothing. Wars stir unrest within the public. More than one war

kkLMUT NORPOTH 5

has led to the removal of the government responsible for it, if not to the overthrow of the whole political regime.

How willing the public is to bear the sacrifices required by war certainly depends on the justification of the war. Can the government persuade the public that there is a worthy cause

to be achieved by war? This task may not be unreasonably difficult in situations where one’s own country is compelled to enter into a war as the result of a clear-cut attack or where the threat of occupation by a foreign country is imminent. On the other hand, when war takes place far away from one’s own territory without a clear and present danger being felt, the ordinary citizen is not so likely to be persuaded by his government of the worthiness of the cause.

In any event, once the public reaches the conclusion that entering a particular war was a mistake the government will stand to lose public support. Also, a government that saw its support grow when the sacrifices required by war were minimal is likely to lose support when increasing sacrifices begin to undermine the justification for the war. Mueller (1973,

p. 61) has shown that the support of the American public for the wars in Korea and Vietnam declined with rising casualties. What initially appeared to the public as a good cause drew disapproval-the more so, the more American soldiers died.

Along with the approval of those wars fell the popularity of the American presidents who had committed the country to them. With the war in Korea having gone on a-year-and-a- half, President Truman’s popularity by early 1952 sank to the 25-point mark: only one in four approved of the way he was doing his job. Mueller’s statistical analysis attributes a popularity loss of 18 points to the Korean war (Mueller, 1973, p. 224). As for the Vietnam war, President Johnson himself figured that it cost him 20 points (as cited in iMueller. 1973,

p. 196). Indeed, from the time of massive American involvement in Vietnam, in early 1965, to

Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection, in early 1968, his popularity curve dropped from roughly 70 points to barely 40 (Gallup, 1980). Studies by Kernel1 (1978) and Norpoth (1984), among others, have confirmed the damaging effect of Vietnam on Johnson’s

popularity. By late 1968, American public opinion was deeply divided over whether getting into the

war was the ‘right thing’. Regrets over the Vietnam involvement steadily mounted and nowadays a vast majority expresses the sentiment the United States should have stayed out: 73 per cent, according to a 1985 New York Times/CBS News survey (Clymer, 1985). The Vietnam war, with its length, heavy cost, territorial remoteness, unclear objectives. and lack of victory certainly is not the kind of war from which a government should expect to reap increased popularity, to put it mildly.

By contrast, World War II appears to have met with strong approval in the American public: three of four Americans, according to a 1944 survey (cited in Mueller, 1973, p. 63), said entry into the war was 120 mistake. FDR’s popularity curve stayed high throughout the war years (Gallup, 1980, p. 37). Unlike Truman and Johnson, he sought reelection during the war and, despite his affront against historical precedent, won it easily. Compared with the wars in Korea and Vietnam, support for World War II apparently did not diminish with increasing casualties.

On the whole, however, one can note that wars do not necessarily enhance government popularity. International crises, by generating a ‘rally round the flag’ reaction, are more suitable for that, in principle. Wars that last long, are exceedingly costly, and wars that lack a persuasive rationale are not expected to do much for a government’s popularity. Against this backdrop, what are our expectations regarding the Falklands war?

6 The Faikiands War and Government Papuiarity in Britain

The Falklands War 1982

As with so many wars, the Falklands war derived from a chain of miscalculations on both sides. (The following account of events is based on Hastings and Jenkins. 1983: and the .S~~tnd?y Times of London, 1982). It was not meant to end up as a bloody confrontation between Argentina and Great Britain. Neither of the two governments asssumed that in the dispute over the Falklands (Malvinas) the other side would continue its diplomacy with military means. To be more precise, the British government failed to anticipate that Argentina would seize the islands by military force, while Argentina did not reckon with the

subsequent deployment of a British task force: and then Britain again did not expect that Argentina would fight it out militarily in the South Atlantic.

The issue in dispute was as strategically unimportant (‘like two bald men fighting over a comb,’ according to Jorge Luis Borges; as quoted by Theroux, 1984, p. 47) as it was politically unsoluble. For roughly 150 years the Falkland islands, situated about 400 miles off the coast of Argentina, had been settled by British subjects. Argentina’s claim to those islands had a purely geographic rationale, but ran counter to the expressed wishes of the local population. In fact, the determination of the locals to remain under British rule was so fervent that any British government had little room for manoeuvre in dealing with Argentina.

By 1982 the British Foreign Office had been negotiating with Argentina for over 15 years about the future of the islands, without any apparent solution in sight. The British aim was to work out a ‘leaseback’ arrangement Hong Kong style. That is to say. Argentina would be given formal sovereignty over the islands, but the Falklanders would be able to Iive as they were accustomed to for the foreseeable future. Those proposals foundered less on the opposition of the Argentinian side than on the noisy protests in the British House of Commons whenever only the slightest hints of them were unveiled. Leaseback did not sell in

England. That Argentina finally decided to employ force in 1982 to secure the islands seems to be

a classic case of government leaders trying to bolster their hold on power within their country through military action abroad. Since 1976, the military ruled Argentina-more with repression than success. The economy steadily deteriorated and public unrest was palpable. The Malvinas seemed to provide an easy target for scoring a success that would deflect public unrest. A military reaction by Britain was not feared at the Casa Rosada.

Likewise, by 198 1 it was assumed that the United States, under President Reagan, would stay neutral in the dispute. UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick was counted among Argentina’s friends; military sanctions imposed by Jimmy Carter were lifted: and the new Argentinian President Galtieri was warmly received by Ronald Reagan. The friendly tone in Washington, like the conciliatory attitude of the British Foreign Office, led the Argentinian government to believe that a military coup against the Falklands would not be too costly.

The British government, however, reacted quickly and forcefuliy to the Xrgentinian capture of the islands on 2 April 1982. The cabinet dispatched a naval task force into the South Atlantic. This decision was widely applauded in Britain, though mainly with the expectation that the show of force would compel Argentina to back down and withdraw from the islands. Meanwhile Britain scored a diplomatic coup at the United INations. where to the shock of the unprepared Argentinian government, the Security Council approved a resolution (No. 502) calling for the withdrawal of Argentinian troops. Another bitter disappointment was soon to follow when, after the failure of the Haig mission and other attempts to mediate between the contenders, the United States took Britain’s side in the

dispute.

HELMuTINOR~J~TH 7

The refusal of Argentina to retreat from the Falklands coupled with the determination of Britain to employ force to see to such a retreat then led inevitably to a military showdown

between the two sides. In ordering the military recapture of the islands Prime Minister Thatcher could count on broad support even from the opposition benches. Opposition leader

Foot approved although 33 members of his party refused to go along. Outside Parliament the press generally supported the government’s policy; the tabloid press sounded as chauvinistic as ever, the Daily Telegraph and The Times firmly backed Thatcher’s policy while the Guardian was critical.

With the Argentinian capitulation on 14 June 1982, the military clash ended, 10 weeks after it began. While the status quo ante was restored on the islands, political upheavals followed the defeat in Argentina. Galtieri and the military relinquished political power and permitted a restoration of the democratic process-a case of regime change in the wake of defeat in war. By contrast, how did victory in war affect the position of the Thatcher government in its country?

Models of Intervention

An event like the Falklands war can be viewed as an ‘intervention’ affecting a continuous process, that process being popular support for the Thatcher government in this case. The intervention may be leaving a mark in several ways. For one, it may lead to apermanent shift in the level of support. Did the Falklands war give a durable boost to Thatcher’s popularity or did it just provide her with a temporary rally that was quickly lost? In addition, did the intervention effect occur abruptly or gradually? If gradually, in what fashion did the effect materialize? This question, of course, can only be answered in a relative sense. What may appear gradual with monthly measures, may look abrupt with quarterly measures; and what seems abrupt with monthly measures might reveal itself as gradual with daily readings. In this analysis monthly observations are being used.

Furthermore, whatever its nature, the intervention effect may only commence with a certain delay. Any intervention takes some time to be registered and absorbed. In the case of this analysis, the Falklands events must be perceived and evaluated by the public. Measures of public opinion at the time of those events may not yet encounter a public that has fully

Abrupt-Permanent

Gradual-Permanent

Abrupt-Temporary

Gradual-Temporary

y+ = ‘““‘;;;;;zB2’ fi

y, T ___j<------+ t 4

0 pre lnterventlon 1 post Intervention

lntervenhon

FIGURE 1. Four models of intervention

(1-B) It

8 The Falkhnds War and Government Poputarity in Broth

absorbed them and related them to their support of the incumbent government. The possibility of a delay of the intervention effect must be reckoned with.

Our specification of intervention models follovvs the guide of Box and Tiao (1975). To

illustrate the application of those models to the Falklands case, let us begin with a simple, it patently unrealistic. assumption, which says that hlrs Thatcher’s popularity before the Falklands war was constant. or equal to 0 once we remove that constant.

According to the first diagram in Figure 1, the abrupt-permanent mcdel (without delay) states that Thatcher’s popularity at all time points immediately after the intervention is higher than before. The o-subscript of w implies the lack of delay. Let us now introduce the intervention variable 1,. which takes on 0 for all time points 1 prior to the intervention and 1 for all time points thereafter.

I, =

0 for t = 1, . . , 34 where 1 is June 1979 and 34 is March 1982

1 forl=35.. , 74 where 35 is April 1982

and 74 is July 1985

Hence one can write the equation for the abrupt-permanent model for Thatcher’s

popularity Cyl) as follows.

YI = % I{

By contrast, the gradual-permanent model provides for the systematic growth of the intervention effect, as depicted in the second diagram in Figure 1.

a” _1?1 = -

(1 -6B)’ 0<6<1

Taking a value of 5 for w, and 0.8 for 6, one would expect a rise of 5 points one month after the intervention; two months later (0.8)5, that is four points. would be added on to the 5-point gain; three months later (0.8)4 etc. At any given month after the intervention an amount equal to 0.8 times the increment accrued during the previous month would be added. The cumulative gain would amount to 25 points. according to the formul,t.

l-6

5 =-

l-0.8

Shifting to the gradual models, let us assume that the intervention makes itself felt abruptly, but that the effect wears off quickly and that the prior level of support is restored. This abrupt-temporary impact, which is depicted in the third diagram in Figure 1. can be modelled through a ‘pulse’ variable, which takes on a value of 1 only at the moment of the intervention but otherwise is 0 (McDowall et al., 1980. p. 80). This variable can be formed by taking the first differences of the intervention variable:

For the abrupt-temporary intervention model we thus get

HELMUT IVORPOTH 9

--s-_ (1 -syr, yf = (I-6B)

= 6y,_1 + w,(l -By,

Let us assume the intervention raisesy, by w, equal to 20 points at the moment in which it occurs. One month later only a portion of that boost will remain: with 6 equal to 0.80, for example, (0.80)20, or 16 points remain; two months after the intervention (0.80)16 or 12.8 etc. In other words, whatever remains of the intervention gain iny, at any given month is cut by 20 per cent the next month. The higher the &parameter. the lower the propor- tional cut and the longer the impact of the intervention.

Finally the gradual-temporary model, for which several specifications are conceivable. Here we generally assume that, first of all, it takes some time for the effect to build up before it begins to shrink and lead to a situation where the prior level ofy, is restored. The question is over how many months the build-up extends. Assuming that this occurs over a limited number of months, one may be able to capture the build-up with a number of w-parameters. For the pattern depicted in the fourth diagram in Figure 1, the model would read.

(w,+w, B+w*B*) Yf =

(1-6B) (1 -BY,

In this event, we would assume that the Falklands war influenced government popularity in three consecutive months, beginning with April 1982. The accumulating increments, however, would be cut according to the &parameter-something that would be fully felt only after the three-month build-up had been completed in June. Alternatively. one could argue that the build-up lasted longer or that each monthly increment was being reduced at a different rate. This would require a model specification other than the one provided above. Moreover, one could also allow for a delay with which the whole impact process commences by shifting the o-subscripts according to one’s expectation of the delay time. This applies to all the four basic models considered here.

ARIMA Models for Government Popularity

Before applying those intervention models to the popularity series of the Thatcher govern- ment, we have to establish a baseline of government popularity. In other words. what was the normal course of Mrs Thatcher’s popularity prior to the Falklands? Figure 2 plots the percentage approving of the Prime Minister in monthly opinion surveys conducted by Market & Opinion Research International Ltd (MORI). The question is: ‘Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Mrs Thatcher is doing her job as Prime Minister?’

Any time series can be treated as the realization of an integrated stochastic process, called an ARIMA process (Box and Jenkins, 1976). In particular, the stochastic processes may be autoregressive or moving-average, or a combination of both. If the observed series is not stationary, those processes occur in an integated form. meaning that first differences (or even further differences) of the observed time series exhibit those stochastic processes, but not the observed series itself.

The analysis of Thatcher’s popularity as prime minister up until the Falklands war suggests an autoregressive, AR(l), process. The residuals produced by this model. it turns out, have a mean that does not significantly deviate from zero; they also have no significant autocorrelations in the test range of 10 months. In other words, they behave like ‘white noise’. They give us almost exactly what we assumed about the popularity series in intro- ducing the intervention models above. Though not strictly constant, the values of the white

10 The FJkiirnds War and Government Popuiarity in B&in

100

65

0 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

FIGURE 2. Satisfaction with Prime ~Iinister Thatcher doing her job

noise series differ only randomly from a constant level of zero. In the analysis below we extend this AR(l) structure to the whole series and super-

impose on it the various intervention specifications. The autoregressive parameter, of course, is estimated anew each time. For the abrupt-permanent type of intervention impact, for example, the intervention-cum-noise model would read:

The AR( 1) structure is captured by the +-parameter, which is attached to a,, the white noise process. The abrupt-permanent intervention impact is denoted by the w-parameter,

which is attached to the intervention variable. The constant B,,, which has not been intro- duced yet, is needed to accommodate the possibility that the pre-Falklands popularity mean differs from the mean for the whole series, pre and post-Falklands. The mean of the whole series @) as adjusted by that constant captures the long-term component of government popularity around which the popularity readings fluctuate in the short run.

The Falklands and Mrs Thatcher’s Popularity

The results of the estimation of the various models are presented in Table 1. The abrupt- permanent model receives some support, with its w,-estimate (April) proving significant. Thatcher’s popularity, it appears, shifted in April of 1982 to a mean level that was 6 points higher than before. By contrast, the results of the gradual-permanent model are clouded. Here the growth parameter (6) is most crucial; unfortunately, it turns out insignificant. If there was any permanent boost to government popularity, it certainly was not gradual; and whether the boost was permanent remains to be decided.

In the temporary domain each of the two basic scenarios, abrupt and gradual, have been examined for several versions. For the abrupt-temporary type of intervention impact we have separately estimated effects for April, May and June of 1982. The most convincing evidence is found for the ‘May’ version, which suggests a boost of 16 points, temporary, to be sure. Each month reduces the boost, whatever is left, at the rate of 4 per cent (1 .O-0.96). By iMay of 1983, 12 months later, only six-tenths of the 16 points remain.

TA

DL

E 1

. T

he

Falk

land

s an

d M

rs

Tha

tche

r’s

popu

lari

ty.

Con

stan

t

Apr

il 19

82

May

19

82

June

19

82

Rat

e (6

)

AR

( 1)

SER

Q

Perm

anen

t M

odel

s of

int

erve

ntio

n A

brup

t-te

mpo

rary

G

radu

al-t

empo

rary

A

brup

t G

radu

al

- 3.

0 (2

.6)

6.3

(2.8

)

-6.3

(?:2

)

(i.2

)

0.83

(0

.07)

3.

3 19

0.44

0.

98

0.96

(0

.30)

(0

.03)

(0

.02)

0.

85

0.81

O

.80

(0.0

7)

(0.0

7)

(0.0

7)

3.2

3.3

2.9

20

19

25

(1)

-3.2

(2.6

) 7.

9 (3

.2)

(2)

(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

-4.3

(2.2

)

15.9

(2.8

)

- 0.

36

(2.9

) -

5.5

(2.8

) -

0.05

(0

.50)

0.

89

(0.0

5)

3.4

18

- 4.

8

(2.4

) 4.

5

(2.8

) 14

.7

(2.8

) 3.

5 (2

.9)

0.95

(0

.02)

0.

82

(0.0

6)

2.8

22

,‘::‘

;, 2.

0

(2.8

)

3::)

15

.0

14.2

(2.8

) (2

.7)

9.6

(3.0

) 0.

95

0.48

(0

.02)

(0

. IX

) 0.

82

0.93

(0

.07)

(0

.05)

2.

8 2.

8 26

20

The

se

resu

lts

wer

e ob

tain

ed

with

B

MD

P2T

. St

anda

rd

erro

rs

for

para

met

er

estim

ates

ar

e in

par

enth

eses

. E

stim

ates

m

ore

than

tw

ice

as l

arge

as

the

ir

stan

dard

er

rors

ar

e si

gnif

ican

t at

the

0.0

5 le

vel.

SER

pro

vide

s th

e st

anda

rd

erro

r of

res

idua

ls,

Q t

he L

jung

-Box

te

st o

f m

odel

ade

quac

y.

With

19

deg

rees

of

fr

eedo

m

none

of

the

Q-e

stim

ates

in

the

ta

ble

abov

e is

sta

tistic

ally

si

gnif

ican

t at

the

0.0

5 le

vel.

Sour

ce:

MO

RI,

Ju

ne

1979

-Jul

y 19

85

(74

mon

thly

ob

serv

atio

ns;

for

thre

e m

issi

ng

valu

es

Gal

lup

data

use

d).

12 The Falbiands CVu and Got’ernment Popularrty in Bntuin

For this model all parameter estimates prove significant, and the standard error of the residuals is the lowest so far. With a non-significant Q the model also passes the test of white- noise residuals. Still, how does the fit compare with that of the gradual-temporary impact models?

Here. too, we have examined three versions. The April-hlay-June version (1). which corresponds to the illustration in Figure 1 above, assumes that the build-up of the Falklands effect was distributed over those three months while the alternatives either exclude the final month or the opening month. The Mav-June version (3) implies that it took some delay before the Falklands impact registered among voters, whereas the April-hlay version (2) would imply that no further gain in public support registered in June.

Version (3) can be quickly dismissed in light of the results presented in Table 1. The AR( l)-parameter is practically 1 .O. which dooms the whole model. Version (1) is somewhat credible. but fails to yield an impressive estimate for June. The inclusion of a June-effect does not yield any benefit above and beyond what model (2). which excludes it. provides. We conclude that the Falklands war boosted Mrs Thatcher‘s popularity in April and May of

1982, with the lion’s share for iMay, but that these gains proved temporary. So substantial rise occurred in June, when Argentina capitulated.

Does this mean that victory did not matter to the British public? That we would have found the same results in case of defeat? Of course not. The point is that victory was anticipated in Britain. The public had no doubts of victory. as shown by a hIOR survey in April 1982 (Economist, 1982a). Victory came as espected and the electorate apparently behaved in the manner of ‘rational expectations’. No additional reward accrued to the government in public support over what had been given in April and May in the espectation of victory. Had the Thatcher government disappointed its public by either losing the war or being unable to bring it to a swift conclusion public reaction might have been quite different from what was found. Most likely, the April-May boost would have evaporated at a much

faster rate. Even with a rather quick victory, the Falklands gain in government popularity did not

prove permanent. To be sure, the April-May version suggests an overall gain of roughly 20 points for Mrs Thatcher. Not a small reward, by any means. Hovvever, given a decay rate of (1 .O-0.95), she is left with a 12.point gain after one year, and a 7-point gain after two years.

Yet before accepting these estimates we must ponder several rival explanations and rule out some technical alternativres that might account for changes over time (Campbell an3 Ross. 1970; Cook and Campbell. 1979).

Was it Really the Falklands War?

Of the many possible alternatives that may have boosted hlrs Thatcher’s approval ratings in the spring of 1982, one can be quickly dismissed: the economy. With unemployment climbing toward a post-war peak of 3 millions, the British economy, if anything. was under- mining government popularity. Certainly, inflation had receded from intolerable levels, but that apparently provided little benefit to the Thatcher government (Clarke c’t c!.. 1986: Norpoth, 1986).

What is more, what happened at that time led Mrs Thatcher to as yet unknown heights of popularity. Those shifts were too massive to be dismissed as ‘regression toward the mean’. that is a natural adjustment after some bad luck. Thatcher did more than just reclaim lost ground, what with her approval ratings rising more than two standard deviations above her pre-Falklands mean, at least temporarily. And there is no doubt of the statistical significance of that change.

HELMUT NoRPoTH 13

But perhaps this was a time in which governments, in general, for reasons unconnected with peculiar British events, enjoyed a rise in public approval. Did Mrs Thatcher’s counter- parts in Washington. Paris and Bonn, for example, also register sharply higher ratings in the

spring of 1982? To make this comparable, let us review changes in popularity from the first to the second quarter in 1982. They show that Ronald Reagan declined from 47 to 44 per cent approving while Francois Mitterrand inched from 58 to 59 per cent and Helmut

Schmidt slipped from 39 to 38 per cent (Public Opinion, 1984, p. 39; Noelle-Neumann and Piel, 1983, p. 240). Margaret Thatcher meanwhile jumped from 32 to 53 per cent. Apparently something of consequence for government popularity had happened in Britain that failed to materialize in the other three western countries.

Still, this does not prove yet that the Falklands did ‘it’. Of course, definite positive proof may always elude us; no hypothesis can ever be confirmed, strictly speaking. A few things are certain, however. In the months of April through June of 1982 one topic quickly displaced others from the top rank of public concerns recorded in opinion polls: the Falklands events. By mid-April, according to a MORI-survey, 39 per cent named the Falklands crisis as ‘the most important problem facing Britain today’, as many as named unemployment (Economist, 1982a). Two weeks later, the Falklands occupied the undisputed number one rank, with a share of 61 per cent compared to 25 for unemployment (Economist, 1982~).

In the mid-April survey, the public also strongly supported the government’s handling of the crisis-83 per cent approved of the sending of the fleet and 67 per cent favored the prospect of a British landing on the Falklands, a decision yet to be made. Only one in seven voiced the~sentiment that he did not care whether or not Britain recovered the islands. Overall, by late April almost seven of ten said they were satisfied with the way Mrs Thatcher and the government had handled the Falklands issue.

With the war having been won, nearly half of the public in June of 1982 declared that their opinion of Mrs Thatcher had improved as opposed to a tiny minority who said their opinion of her had worsened (Economist, 1982d). Confronted with the fact that 250 British soldiers had lost their lives in the Falkland campaign and that it had cost one billion pounds.

three-fourths nevertheless approved of Britain’s military action. In sum, no other event stirred the British public in the spring of 1982 as much as did the

Falklands events. The public reacted to the policy of its government extremely favorably, and Mrs Thatcher immediately rose in public esteem. It is safe to conclude that the Falklands did ‘it’.

The Falklands 1982 and the General Election 1983

Britain defeated Argentina in the Falklands three years after the Conservatives had defeated Labour in the 1979 general election. In June of 1982, Mrs Thatcher had at most two more years to go before the next general election had to be called. To do so at the heels of the Falklands triumph would have provoked cries of ‘manipulation’ and probably undermined the prospects of the governing party. When elections were called a year later, the 1979 Parliament had lasted the post-war median of four years. Was there still enough left of the Falklands effect to benefit the electoral prospects of the Conservative party by that time?

This question cannot be simply answered by citing Mrs Thatcher’s popularity gains and what remained of them a year later. A leader’s gains and losses do not automatically translate into gains and losses for the party. On election day, moreover, as Winston Churchill experienced in the 1945 general election a few months after victory in World War II, ‘the British electorate tends to vote according to what a party represents rather than who

14 The Falkland5 War and Government Popularity in Britain

represents the party’ (Crewe, 1981, p. 275). So the question is. how much did the

Conservative party gain in public support as the result of the Falklands war? And what share of that gain remained one year later?

As Table 2 shows, the Falklands war left a strong mark on the Conservative share. obtained from monthly MORI surveys asking, ‘How would you vote if there were a General

Election tomorrow?’ (and, if undecided or refused, ‘Which party are you most inclined to support?‘). The model that best fitted Mrs Thatcher’s popularity, however, does not suit her party equally as well, as one can gather from the results in column (1) of Table 2. The April-May gradual-temporary specification of the Falklands intervention fails to confirm an effect for April and yields a far smaller one for May. On the other hand, as the estimates in column (2) make clear, the Conservative party registered a significant boost in June as well as May of 1982.

In those two months, we estimate, the Conservative party improved its public support by over 12 points-a gain that subsequently receded at a pace of roughly 5 per cent (1.0-0.95) a month. By June of 1983. when the general election took place, approximately six points remained of the Falklands boost. In other words. the Conservatives would have non only about 37 per cent of the vote in 1983 had it not been for the Falklands war a year earlier. Given the desolate state of the Labour party in 1983 and the rise of the Social Democratic Liberal Alliance, perhaps as little as 37 per cent may still have been enough to Ivin the election. Since 1945, though, no party has won a majority of seats in the Commons with

such a small share of the vote.’

TABLE 2. The Falklands and support for the Conservative party.

Gradual-temporary impact

(1) (2) (3)

Constant

April 1982

May 1982

June 1982

Rate (6)

AR(l)

SER

Q

,f ::, 1.0

(2.1) 9.1

(2.1)

0.96 (0.03) 0.88

(0.06) 2.2

22

- 3.0 (2.5)

8.9 (2.0) 4.4

(2.1) 0.95

(0.03) 0.89

(0.06) 2.0

15

-2.7

(3.0) 0.83

(2.0) 8.9

(2.0) 4.4

(2.1) 0.94

(0.04) 0.91

(0.05) 2.0

13

These results were obtained with BMDPZT. Standard errors for parameter estimates are in parentheses. Estimates more than twice as large as their standard errors are significant at the 0.05 level. SER provides the standard error of residuals. Q the Ljung-Box test of model adequacy. With 19 degrees of freedom none of the Q-estimates in the table above is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Source: TORI, June 1979-July 1985 (74 monthly observa- tions; for three missing values Gallup data used).

HELMUTNORPOTH 15

Conclusions

The war of the Falklands in 1982, for all the strategic insignificance of the object and the short duration of hostilities, had profound political consequences for one of the contestants.

In Argentina the outcome doomed the military regime and hastened the country’s return to democracy-a permanent, impact, thus far. In the victorious country, on the other hand.

the war left a less profound impact. Nevertheless, the war rescued the British prime minister and her party from a low popularity pressure and paid definite electoral dividends one year later.

Of the four intervention models considered, the one that best describes the Falklands impact on government popularity in Britain is of the gradual-temporary variety. A surge of popularity is followed by a decline. It is worth noting. however. that what is gained in essentially two months is not gone in another two months. Even two years later traces of a Falklands effect can still be detected. The Falklands war thus generated more than a ‘rally round the flag’ effect, which typically disappears as soon as the flag is hauled down. It turned into a test of performance and the majority of the public gave the Thatcher government a passing mark.

Both Mrs Thatcher as prime minister and the Conservative party saw their public stock rise. However, Mrs Thatcher recorded far greater and earlier gains than did her party. It seems fair to say that she was the primary beneficiary whereas the Conservative party basked somewhat in her glory. There is a broad consensus that ‘only she among modern British Prime Ministers would have sent that task force not just into the South Atlantic but also into battle in the Falklands’ (Newhouse, 1986, p. 75). Summing up their interviews with British officials, Hastings and Jenkins (1983, pp. 355-6) conclude by saying: ‘It was Mrs. Thatcher’s war. She held us to it. She never seemed to flinch from her convictions about its course. She took the risks on her shoulders and she won. She emerged as a remarkable war leader. ’

Even so, the Falklands glow did fade, at a rate estimated here of roughly 5 per cent a month. At the end, one might ask, What is more astonishing: That the Falklands bonus was

still recognizable, albeit in reduced form, a year later or that it had lost any strength at all? After all, Britain won the war, into which it had been provoked; the war was brief and cost relatively little by comparison to most other wars: it prompted little opposition in the public. and drew solid, though not always enthusiastic, support on both sides of Parliament. Never- theless, the war did not permanently improve public support for the government. If a war of that kind cannot produce a more durable effect one would have to doubt that any nar could. Let alone wars that last a long time, with many casualties and large sacrifices. that provoke all sorts of criticism and opposition, and end up lost.

Notes

1. In one sense. the electoral effect of the Falklands war is even more clearcut than anything proved above. From the time that the Conservatives won the 1979 general election until April 1982, the beginning of the Falklands war, not one monthly MORI poll showed the Conservative party in the lead over Labour. On the other hand, from April 1982 on until the June 1983 election the Conservatives never trailed Labour but instead led by comfortable margins throughout.

At the same time, sharp as this contrast may be. it cannot be overlooked that by late 1981 Labour’s lead had melted into statistical insignificance. The Conservatives were practically even with Labour at the onset of the Falklands war. The dsvindling of the Labour lead coincided with the forging of the Alliance between the Liberals and the newly formed SDP. Moreover, at the helm of the Labour party was a leader with exceedingly low popularity ratings. Michael Foot. since becoming Labour leader in late 1980, rarely managed to top the 25.point mark of approval.

16 Ti,r FJlkhds ILkr and Gowrnment Popuiar~tv in Brrtain

.A cursory look at the chart ot L~bour support in 1982 suggests that Labuur did not iosr much. if anything. as the result ot the F,dkl~.nds war. Thus tvhat the Conservative parry gained from the Falklands could not have come at Labour’s expense. If that is true, logic dictates that the third player of the electoral qame. the Ltberal SDP Alliance. must have been the Falklands loser. This is a point alho argued by It-or Crew. .Is BritJin’s Txo-Party System Really About to Crumble?’ Electoral Stud& 1.3. December 1987. Robert bl. IVorcester. however (in a replv to Creae, Electorai Studtes. 2: 1. April 1983. p. Si) points out that the Alliance had begun lo&g support several montt,s before the Falkiands war.

There can be little doilbt but that the Falklands war caught the Alliance in a don-nward drift. What the Falklands war apparentlv did was ta depress Alliance support by approximately ten more points. i; loss from Lvhich It &led to recover during the next twelve months. In short, with the Falklands war over. neither the Alliance nor Labour posed a serious threat to a Conservative victory in the short run.

References

G. E. P. Box and G. hl. Jenkins, Time Series Ana!t’s.k: Forecasting and Control, rev. edn.. (San Francisco: Holden-Day. 1976).

G. E. P. Box and G. C. Tiao. ‘Intervention Analysis with Applications to Economic and Environ- mental Problems’. Journal ?/‘tlx American Statist!caI Association. 70: 1975. pp. 70-9.

R. A. Brody, ‘International Crises: A Rallying Point for the President’, Public Opinion. 6: 1984. R. A. Brody, ‘A Reconsideration of the ‘Rally’ Phenomenon’, XPSA paper. Washington. DC, 1986. D. T. Campbell and H. L. Ross. ‘The Connecticut Crackdown on Speeding’, in: E. R. Tufte (editor),

The Quantitative Analysis ojsociai Probhms. (Reading. Mass: Addison-Wesley. 1970). H. Clarke, M. Stewart and G. Zuk. ‘Politics. Economics and Party Popularity in Britain. 1979-83’.

ElectoralStudies. 5:Z. August 1986. pp. 12341. T. D. Cook and D. T. Campbell, Quasi-Experimentatton: Design and Analysis Issuesjh FreMSettings.

(Chicago: Rand-l\IcNally. 1979). A. Clymer. ‘Perception of Xmrlrica’s World Role Ten Years Xfter Vietnam’. XPSX paper, Nev.

Orleans, 1985. I. Crewe, ‘LVhv the Ccnservatives Won‘. in: H. Penniman (editor), Britain at the Po!is, 1979.

(Washington. DC: American Enterprise Institute. 1981~. ch. 9. P. Dunleavy and C. Husbands, British Democracy at the Crossroads, (Allen & Unn-in. 1985). Economist, ‘How Britons Think’, 17 April 1982a. ‘Li’e Like It So Far’ , 34 April 1982b. ‘Satisfaction

Peaks’. 8 Mav 198?c. ‘End of War’, 26 June 19S7d. Gallup, Gal/up Odinion In&. Report Xo. 182. 1980. M. Hastings and S. Jenkins. The Battle-for the Faiklands. [London: Norton Bi Co. 1983 D. A. Hibbs. ‘On Analyzing the Etfects of Policy Interventions: Box-Jenkins and Box-Tiao vs.

Structural Equation blodels’ . in: D. Heise (editor). SocioLogical Methodoio,q_v 1977, (San Francisco: JosseyBass. 1977). pp. 137-79.

S. Kernell, ‘Explaining Presidential Popularity’, American PoliticalScience Ret’ieu,. 72: 1978. R/I. Lewis-Beck, ‘Interrupted Time Series Analysis’. in: iv. Berry and M. Leais-Beck. ,v?:i Tools@

Social Scientists, (Beye.-ly Hills and London: Sage. 1986). R. McCleary and R. A. Hay, Applied T/me Series Ana!vsis. (Beverly Hills & London: Sage. 1980). D. McDowall, R. AIcCleary, E. lLleidinger and R. J. Hay. Interrupted Time Series =inz:vsis. Sage

Universitv Paper Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences. no. 21. 1980. W. hlischler. ii. Hoskin and R. Fitzgerald, ’ British Parties in the Balance: A Time Se&s Analysis

of Long-Term Trends in Public Support tor hlajor Parties’. APSA paper. Washington DC, 1986. J. Mueller. War, Presidents and Pub& Opinion, (New York: Wiley. 1973). _ E. Noelle-Neumann and F. Pie1 (editors). Mensbacher Jaiirbuch der Demoskopie VIII, 19-<Y- 1983.

(Munich: KG Saur. 1983). J. Newhouse. ‘Profiles: Margaret Thatcher’. Ti,e 1Vew Yorker. 10 February 1986. pp. 68-99. H. Norpoth, ‘Economics. Politics and the Cycle of Presidential Popularity’. Political Behavior. 6:

1984. pp. 253-73. H. Norpoth. ‘War and Government Popularity in Britain’. APSA paper. Washington DC. 1986. Public Opinion, ‘Opinion Rour.dup’, vol. 7. no. 2. 1984. Sunday Times of London Insight Team. War in the Falklands. (London: Harper & ROX. 1982). P. Theroux, The Kingdom by the Sea. (New York: Washington Square Press, 1981). R. Worcester and S. Jenkins, ‘Britain Rallies ‘Round the Prime Xlinister’, Public Opinion. 5: 1982.