Economic Sanctions and Nationalist Solidarity: An Empirical Test of the Rally-Around-the-Flag Effect in Iran (2005-2020)

Over the past two decades, Iran has been the target of various international economic sanctions, notably the U.S. “maximum pressure†campaign, aimed at compelling regime change by imposing costs and stirring public discontent. This study examines patterns consistent with a “rally-around-the-flag†(RAF) response in Iran using pooled cross-sectional survey data from the World Value Survey (WVS) in 2005 (pre- international sanctions) and 2020 (under international sanctions). During the period of harshest sanctions, the percentage of Iranian citizens prioritizing “A strong defense force†more than doubled (from 12.6% to 35.4%), national pride increased across all age groups (from 62.8% to 83.5% expressing they were “Very proud†), and public confidence in the armed forces rose sharply (from 21.4% to 70.2% choosing “A great deal†of confidence), while confidence in the civilian government and parliament showed only marginal increases. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and probit estimations show that the sanction period is positively associated with these nationalist attitudes, even when controlling for a wide range of demographic and attitudinal variables. The strong concentration of confidence in the military rather than in civilian institutions aligns with the theoretical expectations of external-threat mobilization in stable autocracies. These findings suggest that the period of intensified sanctions corresponded with heightened nationalist sentiment and increased solidarity behind key non-civilian state institutions, patterns that are consistent with the behavior of stable autocracies with high repressive capacity.