The ‘rally around the flag’ argument

The ‘rally around the flag’ effect is a phenomenon wherein citizens tend to increase their support for their government during times of crisis. According to this, the country's government and political leaders tend to experience a temporal boost in approval ratings at the beginning of a war or during an economic and health crisis (Costello, Reference Costello2021). The rally around the flag effect occurs when a country faces a ‘specific, dramatic, and sharply focused’ international event in which the country is directly implicated (Mueller, Reference Mueller1970). During such events, government officials must implement policies to safeguard the population. Consequently, citizens' anxieties and their imperative need for protection led to a transient increase in the government's popularity. This psychological effect typically ends when citizens feel less vulnerable. After the peak of the emergency, citizens begin to evaluate the consequences and continue to express support for the government only if they agree with its decisions. For example, in a war context, the presidential approval rating usually diminishes when citizens become aware of the human cost of the conflict (Oneal and Bryan, Reference Oneal and Bryan1995).

The rally around the flag literature revealed that other variables, such as media coverage and the number of deaths, mediate the effect on the governmental approval rating (Burk, Reference Burk1999). Remarkably, one strand of research, the opinion leadership school, later hypothesized that the rally around the flag effect occurs only when opposition leaders refrain from openly criticizing the government (Brody and Shapiro, Reference Brody and Shapiro1989).

Specifically, part of this literature has also demonstrated that the rally around the flag effect induces a shift in the behaviour of opposition leaders, as a cross-partisan consensus becomes more likely during the peak of a crisis. For example, according to Gallup, after 11 September, George W. Bush's approval rating rose from nearly 51% in early September 2001 to 90% in the weeks after 9/11.Footnote ⁵ Concomitantly, for almost 2 months, Democrat legislators supported nearly every decision taken by the Republican Administration in Congress (Chowanietz, Reference Chowanietz2011).

The rationale is that, during a crisis, opposition leaders tend to refrain from extensive interference with government activities, either due to a shared sense of national patriotism (patriotic reflex) (Mueller, Reference Mueller1970) or a lack of resources to criticize the government effectively (Brody, Reference Brody1991). According to the first hypothesis (patriotic reflex), oppositions would unite behind their ‘commander-in-chief’ to maximize their nation's prospects in the current crisis (Mueller, Reference Mueller1970). Conversely, according to the second, the opposition would support the country's government only out of necessity, lacking the necessary information to critique governmental action (Brody, Reference Brody1991). Regardless of the reason, akin to the government's initial increase in approval rating, the rally around the flag effect among the opposition is transient. After some time, the opposition resumes obstructionist activities, especially in cases of a repeated attack involving few causalities (Chowanietz, Reference Chowanietz2011).

Subsequently, when the world faced the consequences of COVID-19, scholars leveraged the rally around the flag hypothesis to frame the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on government approval ratings. Following Mueller's (Reference Mueller1970) definition, COVID-19 constituted a rally around the flag event. It represented an unprecedented international crisis that was ‘specific, dramatic, and sharply focused’ directly involving the country and its government. Like a military crisis, COVID-19 impacted everyone's living conditions, exerting unparalleled pressure on governments to find a policy response. Secondly, like a war, the pandemic had high visibility in media coverage, catching many governments by surprise. Scholars have argued that the rally around the flag effect occurred primarily when governments responded decisively to citizens' imperative need for protection (Bol et al., Reference Bol, Giani, Blais and Loewen2021). Consequently, at the onset of the pandemic, most European Union (EU) governments experienced a brief rally around the flag effect (Mazza and Scipioni, Reference Mazza and Scipioni2022).

Scholars have explained the decrease in governmental approval ratings by examining how COVID-19 gradually evolved into a politicized issue. In particular, COVID-19 became politicized when it went from a health emergency to an economic one (Lynggaard et al., Reference Lynggaard, Exadaktylos, Jensen and Kluth2024). While at first (i.e. February–March 2020), the public broadly agreed on the measures taken to save human lives, later on (i.e. June–July 2020), it evaluated differently the economic, social and health repercussions of the decision to reopen (Jensen et al., Reference Jensen, Lyngg and Kluth2022). Concomitantly, political parties, media and organized interests advocated for differing preferences regarding lockdown measures. As a result, the previously unanimous consensus surrounding government policies disappeared, leading to a decline in government approval ratings (Kritzinger et al., Reference Kritzinger, Foucault, Lachat, Partheymüller, Plescia and Brouard2021).

The literature shows that party politics has generally followed the trend described above. For instance, Christensen et al. (Reference Christensen, Jensen, Kluth, Kristinsson, Lynggaard, Lægreid, Niemikari, Pierre, Raunio and Skúlason2023) showed that opposition parties rallied around the flag only at the outset of the pandemic in all five Scandinavian countries. Later, centre-right parties generally assumed a pro-business stance, calling for a faster reopening, while centre-left parties called for more restrictive measures. Furthermore, at the beginning of the pandemic, in certain countries, the sense of national unity was reflected even in the opposition's engagement in COVID-19 decision-making. To tackle a health crisis, Belgium's minority government joined forces with opposition parties to support new measures. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, a member of the opposition became the new health minister following the resignation of their predecessor (Louwerse et al., Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021).

Although arguments exist for the opposition cooperating with the government during crises, studies have shown that the rally around the flag effect is often temporary. Soon after the initial emergency phase, public support for the government may decline, and opposition parties may resume challenging the government in the legislative arena. Regarding public support, Kritzinger et al. (Reference Kritzinger, Foucault, Lachat, Partheymüller, Plescia and Brouard2021) illustrated that following the initial peak of the pandemic in the EU, majority and opposition voters exhibited varying levels of trust in the national government (see also Colloca et al., Reference Colloca, Roccato and Russo2024 on Italy). As to legislative activities, Louwerse et al.'s (Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021) analysis of parliamentary speeches revealed that opposition MPs shifted towards openly contesting government measures as the situation progressed. Notably, the public's opposition to the executive's anti-pandemic policies mirrored the established positions of the opposition parties (Chiru, Reference Chiru2024).

Case-specific hypotheses

In the previous section, we outlined the ‘rally around the flag’ argument, with a particular focus on recent literature applying this framework to the COVID-19 crisis. In this section, we draw upon this literature to formulate research hypotheses for the Italian context. Italy exhibits several characteristics potentially indicative of a rally around the flag phenomenon. First, in the initial phase of the pandemic, there was a sense of national unity and fear of contagion in Italy, which, according to the rally around the flag hypothesis, facilitated the rise in Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's approval ratings. Italy was the first Western country to be affected by COVID-19 and implement lockdown policies (Maggini and Pedrazzani, Reference Maggini and Pedrazzani2021), and, during the initial months of the pandemic (March–May 2020), Prime Minister Conte monopolized access to all news broadcasts (Bromo et al., Reference Bromo, Gambacciani and Improta2023). As a result, in line with the criteria identified in the literature, Prime Minister Conte witnessed an increase in popularity, which declined over time. Specifically, at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020), Conte surged from 45 to 71% of the national consensus (February–March 2020). Then, in October 2020, his approval rating returned to 55%.

Secondly, during the 2020–2022 period, the majority and opposition parties shared government responsibilities between the national and regional levels, with opposition parties – FI, League,/ and FDI – leading the majority of regional governments (for a complete list of party acronyms, see Table A1 in the online appendix). As suggested by Louwerse et al. (Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021), under such circumstances, opposition leaders cannot credibly fault the effectiveness of government actions because both actors share a similar responsibility to protect the lives of citizens in a multilevel setting (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Government Conte II's approval ratings.

Source: Demos & PI, Atlante Politico 82–91.

To explore the broader implications of crises on opposition legislative behaviour in Italy, we propose examining amendment activities to government decree-laws. An amendment is a change to a bill that is to be discussed and voted on in parliament, in the same way that bills are. In the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, any parliamentarian can propose an amendment to a bill. Amendments can take various forms, from the suggestion of deleting or changing existing articles to adding new ones. The action of tabling many amendments in the plenary session is primarily made to delay government legislation, as according to the internal rule of procedure, every amendment must be previously discussed (Mattson, Reference Mattson and Döring1995). Specifically, obstructionism is particularly prominent during the examination of decree-laws, especially in the Chamber of Deputies, as its standing orders do not currently allow for time limitations on the discussion of decree-law conversion bills (Article 154 of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber of Deputies; see Giannetti and Pedrazzani, Reference Giannetti and Pedrazzani2016). Furthermore, decree-laws are measures issued by the government in urgent and necessary situations. However, for them to have full effect, they must be converted into law by the parliament within 60 days from the publication of the decree's text in the Official Gazette. This time constraint gives oppositions a strategic opportunity to table many amendments, as their discussion slows down the conversion process, forcing the government to resort to the confidence procedure.Footnote ⁶

Considering the Italian context and drawing on the rally around the flag literature outlined above, we expect first oppositions to exhibit some degree of sensitivity to the crisis, leading them to adjust their amendment activities compared to non-crisis periods. This change could be attributed to the reduction in parliamentary activity during the pandemic (Bromo et al., Reference Bromo, Gambacciani and Improta2023) and constitutes a precondition for the rally around the flag effect. Second, during the initial stages of a crisis, the rally around the flag effect might lead to a temporary decrease in amendment activities as the opposition prioritizes cooperation or avoids actions that could be perceived as undermining national unity. Third, as the crisis progresses and its long-term consequences become more evident, opposition parties might gradually return to their usual level of amendment proposals, potentially even escalating it in response to government policies or perceived mishandling of the situation. The first hypothesis establishes a general expectation of change, whereas the remaining two explore the potential trajectories of this change across different phases of the crisis. In a more formal way, we expect that:

Data, coding and methods

Data and coding

This study focuses on how governing and opposing parties behave during the COVID-19 crisis, using amendment tactics to decree-law conversion bills as a key indicator. Decree-laws were extensively used to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. These decrees addressed various aspects of the crisis, such as restricting citizens' rights and planning post-pandemic reopening. Building on this rationale, in this article, we examine the number of amendments presented by parliamentary parties and admitted to the plenary vote during the decree-law conversion process.Footnote ⁷

To maximize the potential for observing amendatory activities, we focus our analysis exclusively on the Chamber of Deputies. As mentioned above, the Chamber's rules do not impose time limitations on discussions surrounding decree-law conversion bills, creating a more conducive environment for amendatory practices to occur. To conduct our analysis, we leverage the Chamber of Deputies' linked-data. This allows us to extract information on all 125 decree-law conversion bills voted on during the 18th legislature (2018–2022). Of the 125 decree-law conversion bills analysed, 69 originated in the Chamber of Deputies and underwent their first reading there. The remaining bills originated in the Senate and were received for a second reading in the Chamber of Deputies. Generally, the Minister for relations with parliament decides the initial chamber to present the bills following contingent factors. For example, to make the bill approval faster in the first reading, they consider the amount of parliamentary work already scheduled for the discussion in each chamber. In the Italian context, governments can avoid voting amendments using the confidence procedure. According to the Italian laws and chambers' rules of procedure, if the government attaches a question of confidence to an article of a bill, and if the house votes in favour, the article is approved, and all amendments are considered rejected (Art. 116, Rule of Procedure of the Chamber; Art. 161, Rule of Procedure of the Senate).Footnote ⁸ Figure 2 depicts the monthly distribution of these bills, highlighting whether the government attached a confidence vote.

Figure 2. Monthly distribution of decree-law conversion bills in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (2018–2022).

Source: Authors' elaboration on Chamber of Deputies linked data.

According to Figure 2, out of the 125 conversion bills analysed, confidence votes were attached to 70. Interestingly, the figure does not show any time pattern in terms of the number of bills converting decree-laws or votes of confidence. Most importantly, we have not observed any significant difference since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak (February 2020). This suggests that parliamentary votes and discussions on bills continued without major interruptions during the state of health emergency. Notably, the number of bills approved with the confidence procedure did not have any peak during the 18th legislative term (2018–2022). This suggests that the overall number of amendments tabled by parliamentarians has not changed significantly during the period of investigation, as governments resort to this procedure when a massive number of amendments would prevent the bills from being passed (i.e. within the timeframe of 60 days stipulated by Art. 77 of the Italian Constitution).

For each of the 125 decree-law conversion bills in our selection, we compiled data on the amendments admitted for a vote in the plenary session. More precisely, we counted the amendments proposed by each party in the Chamber of Deputies at the time of the vote. The party/conversion bill is our unit of analysis, while the number of amendments per party/conversion bill constitutes our dependent variable. Our analysis examines a dataset encompassing 850 observations. This number reflects the combined behaviour of all parties across every decree-law conversion bill voted on during the 18th legislature.Footnote ⁹

On average, each party submitted 2.38 amendments per bill. Notably, the minimum number of amendments proposed by a party was 0, while the maximum reached 102. Remarkably, no amendments were permitted for discussion in the Chamber of Deputies for any decree-law conversion bill linked to a confidence vote. This finding highlights the strategic use of confidence votes by the government, as it effectively discourages amendments and expedites the bill's passage. This observation is not necessarily a concern, as confidence votes do not exhibit a clear pattern over time. Table A1 in the online Appendix summarizes the key descriptive statistics for the dependent variable, offering preliminary insights into variations in amendment behaviour between governing and opposition parties.

We focus on two independent variables to test the previous section's hypotheses. The first is majority/opposition status, which allows us to examine how belonging to the governmental majority or the opposition affects parties' amendatory activities. Majority/opposition status is operationalized as a dummy variable, with 1 indicating opposition and 0 indicating majority at the time of the plenary vote. The second variable is a time trend, which tracks changes over time and identifies potential health crisis periods. We use a time trend variable to identify crisis periods that tracks the number of days since the legislature began its term (starting on 23 March 2018). This provides a more accurate monitoring of changes in activity during crisis periods compared to non-crisis periods, rather than using a dummy variable to differentiate between ‘regular’ and ‘crisis’ periods.

Building on existing research, we recognize that other factors beyond parties' majority/opposition status and crisis periods can influence variations in how actively parties propose amendments to decree-law conversion bills. We categorize these additional factors into three main groups: (1) characteristics of parties within parliament and their relationship with the government, (2) attributes of the government itself, and (3) features of the bill under consideration. Starting with the first category, previous research suggests that a wider ideological gap between a party and the government leads to less cooperation in voting or in expressed sentiment during parliamentary speeches (Tuttnauer, Reference Tuttnauer2018; Hohendorf et al., Reference Hohendorf, Saalfeld and Sieberer2021; Louwerse et al., Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021). We believe this may equally apply to the proposed amendments to the legislation sponsored by the government. Even in contexts characterized by low levels of politicization, such as significant public health emergencies, we can anticipate that parties whose ideological stances diverge more significantly from the government will, on average, propose a greater number of amendments (Louwerse et al., Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021). We also control for the size of parliamentary party group, as larger parties benefit from two key advantages: more resources to dedicate to amendments and a larger pool of members who can individually submit proposals.

Louwerse et al. (Reference Louwerse, Sieberer, Tuttnauer and Andeweg2021) highlight a further party characteristic that may contribute to explaining opposition behaviour: parties' prior experience in government. Parties with a history in government are more likely to be responsible and cooperate with the government on legislation and propose fewer amendments (Tuttnauer, Reference Tuttnauer2018). This ‘responsible’ behaviour may be even more pronounced during crises, as shown by De Giorgi and Moury (Reference De Giorgi and Moury2015: 118). As De Vries and Hobolt (Reference De Vries and Hobolt2020) argue, government experience can also differentiate between challenger and mainstream parties, which, according to country-specific case studies, are likely to exhibit distinct behaviours during crises like COVID-19 (Vande Walle et al., Reference Vande Walle, Wolfs and Van Hecke2021; Hájek, Reference Hájek2023). Challengers may distance themselves from the government, while mainstream parties often emphasize cooperation. Recent research suggests that similar dynamics can be observed between populist and non-populist parties, as populist parties often exploit crises to criticize governments for making decisions that they perceive as detrimental to the people (Lehmann and Zehnter, Reference Lehmann and Zehnter2022).

We use expert survey data from Giannetti et al. (Reference Giannetti, Pedrazzani and Pinto2022) collected during the 2018 general elections to measure the ideological distance between a party and the government. First, we calculate the government's average position on a left-right scale based on the scores of parties in the cabinet. Then, we define ideological distance as the absolute difference between a party's position and the government's average position.Footnote ¹⁰ Party size is computed as the seat share at the time a decree-law conversion bill is voted on. Next, we created a dummy variable for a party's prior government experience. This variable is coded as 1 if the party held a government position before 2018 and 0 otherwise. Among the parties in the 18th legislature, the M5S, FDI and IV had no prior government experience (coded 0). To classify parties as populist (1) or non-populist (0), we incorporate a further dummy variable. The data for this variable were obtained from the PopuList database (Rooduijn et al., Reference Rooduijn, Pirro, Halikiopoulou, Froio, Van Kessel, Lange, de Lange, Mudde and Taggart2024).Footnote ¹¹

Moving to the attributes of the governments, previous research (Martin and Vanberg, Reference Martin and Vanberg2011; Pedrazzani and Zucchini, Reference Pedrazzani and Zucchini2013) highlights that in multiparty governments, delegating power to cabinet ministers can become problematic when the coalition itself is deeply divided on policy issues. Intra-coalition divergence incentivizes ministers to avoid agreed-upon compromises and take more extreme positions. This, in turn, triggers efforts by other coalition members to challenge and amend draft legislation to bring it back in line with the original compromise. For this reason, we expect a higher number of amendments as policy divisions in the government increase. To measure policy divisions in the government, we use the absolute distance between the two most extreme governing parties on the left-right scale. Party positions are derived from the same expert survey data mentioned above.

We include several control variables related to the decree-law conversion bills to account for additional factors potentially influencing amendments. First, we consider whether the bill originated in the Chamber of Deputies. We expect bills starting there to receive more amendments on average than those first examined by the Senate. This is because, according to recent practice in the Italian parliament, bills are mainly discussed and scrutinized in the legislative branch where they were introduced (Massa Pinto, Reference Massa Pinto2022). Second, we control for the number of committees assigned to examine the bill, as more committees generally translate into a higher likelihood of amendments being proposed. Finally, given our focus on legislative behaviour during a health crisis, we specifically isolate conversion bills of which the Ministry of Health is among the proposers. To incorporate the characteristics of the decree-law conversion bills, we employ several dummy variables. Bills that originated in the Chamber of Deputies were examined by more than one committee, and were proposed by the Ministry of Health are all coded as 1.Footnote ¹²