Who's Responsible for the Economy? The Formation and Consequences of Responsibility Attributions

Rudolph, Thomas

doi:10.2307/3186128

Cited by 67 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…Or perhaps they thought that economic problems arose independently of government policies. The latter explanation would be consistent with Rudolph's (2003) work, which shows that economically conservative respondents will blame labor or business leaders for economic conditions, given the opportunity to do so, regardless of partisan considerationsalthough economic conservatism does tend to correlate with Republicanism. 5 Because respondents have only five options when evaluating either the state or national economy, it is possible that an extremely optimistic respondent could give the highest score to the nation but find herself unable to give an even higher score to the state.…”

Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 72%

“…In this situation, I expect the literature on partisanship and bias to become relevant. Rudolph (2003) has already shown that partisan considerations affect whether a voter will blame Congress or the president for national economic problems. My central claim is that American federalism creates a similar blame game between governors and the president: Voters will tend to blame whichever level of government that is not controlled by their own party.…”

Section: A Theory Of Partisan Bias and Divided Federalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

Brown

2010

The Journal of Politics

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Abstract:In the United States, voters directly elect dozens of politicians: Presidents, governors, legislators, mayors, and so on. How do voters decide which politician to blame for which policy outcomes? Previous research on gubernatorial approval has suggested that voters divide policy blame between governors and the president based on each office's "functional responsibilities"-requiring that responsibilities are clearcut, which is seldom true. Using data from four surveys, I show that voters actually divide responsibility for economic conditions in a partisan manner, preferring to blame officials from the opposing party when problems arise. However, this sort of argument fails to account for the powerful and well-documented role that partisanship plays in structuring American voters' behavior. My argument, detailed below, is that Americans rely heavily on partisan shortcuts when deciding whether to hold their governor (as opposed to the president) responsible for state-level policy outcomes-especially when functional responsibility for a particular policy area is shared by both the governor and the president. Of course, it's far from novel to suggest that partisanship matters in American politics; previous research has shown abundantly that voters tend to have more patience with politicians of their own party than with politicians from the other side. My major claim is not just that partisanship matters, then, but rather that partisanship helps determine which policy results get attributed to the governor and which get attributed to the president. Previous work on gubernatorial elections has erred by emphasizing functional responsibility without also taking account of partisanship.To be clear, I do not intend to argue that voters will completely ignore the president's and governor's actual functional responsibilities; even the least engaged citizen should know that governors have as little control over foreign policy as presidents have over potholes. Rather, my argument is that partisan considerations will influence allocations of blame in the many policy areas where the president and the governor share responsibility-an argument I test by analyzing responsibility for the state's economy. When the president and the governor belong to the same party, there is not much opportunity for a partisan blame game to develop between them. But when they belong to different parties, a situation I refer to as "divided federalism," partisan voters gain the opportunity to blame one for economic problems while giving the other a free pass. Just as divided government creates a potential blame game between the president and Congress, divided federalism creates a similar situation between the president and the governors. I proceed now by briefly reviewing the two main literatures I draw on-the literatures on partisan bias and on gubernatorial elections-and show how the latter can benefit by incorporating insights from the former. I then explore three specific empirical implications of this theoretical argument.

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Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: A Theory Of Partisan Bias and Divided Federalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

Brown

2010

The Journal of Politics

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“…When the powers of government are divided, voters are argued to have less information about the choices before them and thus are less willing to participate in the electoral process due to the difficulty of assigning responsibility. This argument is also supported by related research, which shows that voters condition their choices based on perceived accountability (Rudolph andGrant 2002, Rudolph 2003) and that uninformed voters are less likely to participate (see Battaglini, Morton, and Palfrey 2006 for a review).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Separation of Powers and Turnout

2007

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“…Bartels (2002a) likewise argues that the interpretation of party identification as a ''running tally'' of past satisfaction with a given political party's policies is untenable, as perceptions of past performance are themselves shaped by pre-existing partisan affiliation. Much ensuing research has established that partisanship can influence responsibility attributions so that favored parties are seen to be responsible for good outcomes but not for negative ones (Abramowitz, Lanoue and Ramesh 1988;Feldman 1982;Peffley 1984;Rudolph 2003;Marsh and Tilley 2010).…”

Section: Why Party Preference May Explain Performance Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-evaluating the Valence Model of Political Choice

Evans¹,

Chzhen²

2015

PSRM

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T he influential valence model of voting developed over the last decade by the British Election Study (BES) team assumes that party and leadership performance evaluations have a causal impact on party choice. An alternative perspective argues that such performance evaluations are instead the consequences of party choice. This article examines the analytical and empirical underpinnings of the BES valence model and compares it to the partydriven approach. To do so, it estimates cross-lagged structural equation models of the association between Labour Party preference and evaluations of the Labour government's performance during the 2005-10 British electoral cycle. It shows that party preference has a stronger effect on performance evaluations than vice versa; performance evaluations have no significant effect on party preference toward the end of the electoral cycle. The study also finds that, contrary to claims made concerning their merits as simplifying heuristics, performance assessments have no impact on short-term movements in party choice for less politically attentive voters. To a substantial degree, evaluations of party performance express-rather than explain-party choice, and would appear to have limited merit as simplifying heuristics.S tokes (1963, 1994) famously argued that competition between parties involves assessing policy performance and party competence in the delivery of agreed-upon goals. There is assumed to be a general consensus on the desirability of goals such as economic growth, the effective delivery of public services and the reduction of crime. Vote choice is based on which party or candidate is perceived to be the most competent to deliver these sorts of outcomes. This theory contrasts markedly with approaches to voting that emphasize differences in issues and/or ideological positions between parties and voters. In recent years, perceptions of party competence have become important explanations of political choices and electoral outcomes. Voters evaluate parties and politicians in terms of their competence and performance, and vote for those they think have delivered, or will deliver, valued outcomes.1 The significance of evaluating performance and competence for vote choice is now so embedded in our understanding of voting behavior that voter assessments of party competence on key issues are routinely included in election surveys. The American, British, Canadian, European and Irish election studies all now include questions on party issue competence (Wagner and Zeglovits forthcoming).A particular model of valence voting advocated by the current British Election Study (BES) team has recently become highly influential. Clarke et al. (2004Clarke et al. ( , 2009Clarke et al. ( , 2011 have instantiated an operationalization of valence voting that has reshaped understanding of British voting behavior in particular, but has also been assumed to have more general

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Who's Responsible for the Economy? The Formation and Consequences of Responsibility Attributions

Cited by 67 publications

References 32 publications

Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

Separation of Powers and Turnout

Re-evaluating the Valence Model of Political Choice

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