Judging the blame game: how do citizens react to blame shifting in public service delivery?
This article examines blame shifting, where elected officials attempt to deflect blame for negative outcomes onto other actors. While prior research suggests that citizens generally disapprove of this tactic, this study re-evaluates how contextual factors shape these reactions, focusing specifically...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 316 - 329 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jul2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=194993805&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 194993805 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10531858 172N jtl: Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory issn: 10531858 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 vid: 36 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 194993805 10.1093/jopart/muaf038 ppf: 316 ppct: 13 formats: tig: atl: Judging the blame game: how do citizens react to blame shifting in public service delivery? aug: au: Nowlan, Oscar affil: Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom su: United Kingdom Public services Responsibility Political accountability Public administration Guilt (Psychology) Municipal services Delegation of authority Public opinion sug: subj: Public services Responsibility Political accountability Public administration Guilt (Psychology) Municipal services Delegation of authority Public opinion United Kingdom Administration of Housing Programs Administration of Urban Planning and Community and Rural Development Administration of Air and Water Resource and Solid Waste Management Programs Administration of Public Health Programs Other local, municipal and regional public administration Other General Government Support keyword: blame games contracting out copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 crises delegation inLanguage:en public service failure publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf038 blame games contracting out copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 crises delegation inLanguage:en public service failure publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf038 ab: This article examines blame shifting, where elected officials attempt to deflect blame for negative outcomes onto other actors. While prior research suggests that citizens generally disapprove of this tactic, this study re-evaluates how contextual factors shape these reactions, focusing specifically on cases of public service failure. In many areas of public management, service delivery is delegated or contracted out to public or private organizations, raising the question of whether such institutional arrangements make it easier for politicians to shift blame onto these agents. A survey experiment (n = 955) was conducted in the United Kingdom involving a hypothetical public service failure. Information cues varied the response strategy of local elected officials (shifting blame or accepting responsibility) and the service delivery model (public or private sector; high or low delegation). The results from OLS regression analyses show that participants were generally less approving of blame shifting compared to accepting responsibility. However, approval increased when the organization being blamed was viewed by participants as carrying more blame for failures in service delivery than the official. Although delegation levels did not directly moderate the effect of blame shifting, further logistic regression analysis shows that higher delegation made participants more likely to view the service provider as culpable, which in turn influenced how they reacted to blame shifting tactics. These findings highlight the conditional nature of public reactions to blame avoidance behavior, showing that citizens' evaluations of tactics like blame shifting depend on their beliefs about who is responsible, which can be shaped by institutional context. The study offers new insights into when blame shifting may appear more credible or justified and underscores the role of context in shaping the effectiveness of political blame avoidance strategies. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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