Suchergebnisse

This article establishes that transitions of power from one presidential administration to the next can act as a source of uncertainty regarding whom citizens view as responsible for national conditions. I argue that citizens confront this ambiguity in a partisan manner when making responsibility attributions of credit and blame. Using the economy and the Iraq War as examples, ordinary partisans frequently ascribe responsibility using motivated reasoning by crediting the president of their own political party for perceived successes and blaming the president of the opposite party for perceived failures.

This study uses an experimental design to simulate the ballot counting process during a hand-recount after a disputed election. Applying psychological theories of motivated reasoning to the political process, we find that ballot counters' party identification conditionally influences their ballot counting decisions. Party identification's effect on motivated reasoning is greater when ballot counters are given ambiguous, versus specific, instructions for determining voter intent. This study's findings have major implications for ballot counting procedures throughout the United States and for the use of motivated reasoning in the political science literature. Adapted from the source document.