Suchergebnisse

Blame games between governing and opposition parties are a characteristic feature of domestic politics. In the EU, policymaking authority is shared among multiple actors across different levels of governance. How does EU integration affect the dynamics of domestic blame games? Drawing on the literatures on EU politicisation and blame attribution in multi-level governance systems, we derive expectations about the direction and frequency of blame attributions in a Europeanized setting. We argue, first, that differences in the direction and frequency of blame attributions by governing and opposition parties are shaped by their diverging baseline preferences as blame avoiders and blame generators; secondly, we posit that differences in blame attributions across Europeanized policies are shaped by variation in political authority structures, which incentivize certain attributions while constraining others. We hypothesize, inter alia, that blame games are "Europeanized" primarily by governing parties and when policy-implementing authority rests with EU-level actors. We test our theoretical expectations by analysing parliamentary debates on EU asylum system policy and EU border control policy in Austria and Germany.

Blame games between governing and opposition parties are a characteristic feature of domestic politics. In the EU, policymaking authority is shared among multiple actors across different levels of governance. How does EU integration affect the dynamics of domestic blame games? Drawing on the literatures on EU politicisation and blame attribution in multi-level governance systems, we derive expectations about the direction and frequency of blame attributions in a Europeanized setting. We argue, first, that differences in the direction and frequency of blame attributions by governing and opposition parties are shaped by their diverging baseline preferences as blame avoiders and blame generators; secondly, we posit that differences in blame attributions across Europeanized policies are shaped by variation in political authority structures, which incentivize certain attributions while constraining others. We hypothesize, inter alia, that blame games are "Europeanized" primarily by governing parties and when policy-implementing authority rests with EU-level actors. We test our theoretical expectations by analysing parliamentary debates on EU asylum system policy and EU border control policy in Austria and Germany.

Supplementary material for Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, and Berthold Rittberger (2020). The EU Multi-level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games. In: Politics and Governance 8(1).

Supplementary material for Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, and Berthold Rittberger (2020). The EU Multi-level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games. In: Politics and Governance 8(1).

AbstractThe delegation of governance tasks to third parties is generally assumed to help governments to avoid blame once policies become contested. International organizations, including the European Union (EU), are considered particularly opportune in this regard. The literature lacks assessments of the blame avoidance effects of delegation, let alone of the effects of different delegation designs. To address this gap in the literature, we study public blame attributions in the media coverage of two contested EU policies during the financial crisis and the migration crisis. We show that the blame avoidance effect of delegation depends on the delegation design: When agents are independent (dependent) of government control, we observe lower (higher) shares of public blame attributions targeting the government (blame shifting effect), and when agents are external (internal) to the government apparatus, overall public blame attributions for a contested policy will be less (more) frequent (blame obfuscation effect). Our findings yield important normative implications for how to maintain governments' accountability once they have delegated governance tasks to third parties.

Supplementary material to: Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Bernhard Zangl, Berthold Rittberger, and Lisa Kriegmair: Blame Shifting and Blame Obfuscation: The Blame Avoidance Effects of Delegation in the EU. In: European Journal of Political Research.

Supplementary material for the article "Divided They Fail: The Politics of Wedge Issues and Brexit" (Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, and Bernhard Zangl), accepted for publication by the Journal of European Public Policy at October 10, 2019