Blame Attribution, Partisanship, and Federalism: Evidence from a Panel Survey

Abstract When disaster strikes in federal systems, who do citizens blame and why? Partisan blame attribution (PBA) suggests that Republicans and Democrats hold consistent ideological preferences on which level of government should respond and receive blame for policy failures in times of crisis. Conversely, partisan federalism (PF) suggests that partisans will opportunistically assign blame to the level of government controlled by their disfavored party. Research on blame attribution has yet to assess which mechanism better explains patterns of blame attribution among individuals. We test each mechanism to evaluate patterns of blame attribution related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging panel survey data collected before the 2020 election and after the 2021 presidential transition, we find that Democrats uniformly follow PF expectations, whereas Republicans follow both PBA and PF expectations. We conclude that scholars should revisit blame attribution and more carefully consider the role of federalism in determining citizen preferences.