Current research faces challenges in explaining how contextual factors account for variations in the rally effect in political trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. While systematic explanations of country-level differences are hard to establish by means of cross-sectional comparisons, we propose to compare subnational areas within a country to learn more about the role of contextual factors. In this research note, we argue that ethnic diversity is a crucial contextual factor that helps researchers understand differences in political trust at the onset of the pandemic. Specifically, we propose that the rally effect should be restricted to ethnically more homogeneous contexts. An analysis of geocoded household panel data from the Netherlands reveals a strong rally effect in ethnically homogenous areas, while political trust in ethnically diverse contexts appears not to respond to the pandemic. This suggests an entrenched geography of political trust, which is associated with ethnic divides and is even maintained under crisis.

Security forces are one of the main targets of political violence. This paper examines the effect of their casualties on electoral outcomes. Between two general elections in 2015, Turkey experienced a series of attacks that killed 153 members of its security forces. Based on the as-if random assignment of their funerals across the country, I estimate that government vote share increases in the funeral places of security force terror victims. However, in the localities with recurring funerals, it decreases by a similar percentage. These non-linear changes provide strong evidence for the rally theory.