The Politics of Distributing Blame and Credit: Evidence from a Survey Experiment with Norwegian Local Politicians

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Politics of Distributing Blame and Credit: Evidence from a Survey Experiment with Norwegian Local Politicians

AU - Schönhage, Nanna Lauritz

AU - Bækgaard, Martin

AU - Geys, Benny

PY - 2024/5

Y1 - 2024/5

N2 - How do politicians attribute responsibility for good and poor policy outcomes across multiple stakeholders in a policy field where they themselves can affect service provision? Such ‘diffusion’ decisions are crucial to understand the political calculations underlying the allocation of blame and credit by office-holders. We study this issue using a between-subjects survey experiment fielded among local politicians in Norway (N = 1073). We find that local politicians attribute responsibility for outcomes in primary education predominantly to school personnel (regardless of whether performance is good or bad) and do not engage in local party-political blame games. However, we show that local politicians are keen to attribute responsibility for poor outcomes to higher levels of government, especially when these are unaligned with the party of the respondent. These findings suggest that vertical partisan blame-shifting prevails over horizontal partisan blame games in settings with a political consensus culture.

AB - How do politicians attribute responsibility for good and poor policy outcomes across multiple stakeholders in a policy field where they themselves can affect service provision? Such ‘diffusion’ decisions are crucial to understand the political calculations underlying the allocation of blame and credit by office-holders. We study this issue using a between-subjects survey experiment fielded among local politicians in Norway (N = 1073). We find that local politicians attribute responsibility for outcomes in primary education predominantly to school personnel (regardless of whether performance is good or bad) and do not engage in local party-political blame games. However, we show that local politicians are keen to attribute responsibility for poor outcomes to higher levels of government, especially when these are unaligned with the party of the respondent. These findings suggest that vertical partisan blame-shifting prevails over horizontal partisan blame games in settings with a political consensus culture.

KW - blame

KW - credit

KW - performance information

KW - political accountability

KW - responsibility attribution

KW - survey experiment

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85164153637&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1475-6765.12610

DO - 10.1111/1475-6765.12610

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0304-4130

VL - 63

SP - 599

EP - 620

JO - European Journal of Political Research

JF - European Journal of Political Research

IS - 2

ER -