Parties in parliament change and adapt their behaviour according to the context they operate in. While the influence of the institutional as well as economic context has been the subject of much research, we focus on combining those with an events-based approach. We assume that when events that require a quick reaction take place, parties will act more internally united. While government parties move closer to the expressed position of their respective minister, opposition parties will use this opportunity to present themselves as an alternative to the government, and express criticism. In order to test this theory, we look at speeches in parliament about foreign policy in nine different countries between 1990 and 2022. Although existing research often associates foreign policy with unity and national interests, this view overlooks the role of parties as pivotal decision-makers in shaping foreign policy. We differentiate between events such as foreign assignments, terrorist attacks or international summits as well as their severity. Applying text-as-data methods to scale party positions we find that members of governing parties increase intra- and inter-party cohesion, thus showing a rally effect. The same is not true for opposition parties, where the type of event influences a party’s response. Our findings shed new light on the influence of different types of evens when explaining party behaviour in parliament.