"Politics in Hard Times": The Impact of Economic and Political Crises on Mass Support of Heads of Government

This paper is aimed to research the impact of economic dynamics and political regime on rally round the flag effect. The research contains the cross-country analysis of 36 cases of approval rating's growth during war conflicts and sports mega events in 18 countries from 1990 to 2015. As a result of the research it was discovered that the worse the economical situation in the country immediately before conflict was, the more active the rally round the flag effect was. The reasons for this correlation are that an unhealthy economical sphere reduces political leaders’ support, and that is why the amount of political support became more in the future after «consolidating» event. In addition, the inference is that approval rating in democracies depends more on economic dynamics, whereas autocracy used they control over the media to maintain the level of support. Main conclusion of this work is that the economic welfare affects more mass support of the state leader, than capacity of the state to control a criticism made by mass media and opposition.