Is the Government to Blame? An Experimental Test of How Partisanship Shapes Perceptions of Performance and Responsibility
Is the Government to Blame? An Experimental Test of How Partisanship Shapes Perceptions of Performance and Responsibility
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DOI：
10.1017/s0022381611000168
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发表时间：
2011-04-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Hobolt, Sara B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Tilley, James;Hobolt, Sara B.
选民利用选举来让政府对其表现负责的想法是民主理论的核心，无数研究表明，经济表现可以预测现任者的支持率。尽管如此，最近的研究对政策绩效和政党选择之间的这种简单联系提出了挑战，认为任何关系都受到先前的政治信仰（尤其是党派之争）的制约。一些人认为，经济观念是由政党选择决定的，而不是相反。另一些人则声称，选民倾向于将自己所认为的成功归咎于他们所支持的政党，但如果表现不佳，就会免除他们的责任。本研究通过调查实验来理清复杂的因果关系，探讨党派之争对绩效评估和责任归因的影响。我们的研究结果表明，党派忠诚度对责任归因具有普遍影响，但对绩效评估的影响较弱。
The idea that voters use elections to hold governments to account for their performance lies at the heart of democratic theory, and countless studies have shown that economic performance can predict support for incumbents. Nonetheless recent work has challenged this simple link between policy performance and party choice by arguing that any relationship is conditioned by prior political beliefs, notably partisanship. Some have argued that economic perceptions are shaped by party choice rather than vice versa. Others have claimed that voters tend to attribute responsibility for perceived successes to their favored party, but absolve them of responsibility if performance is poor. This study examines the effect of partisanship on both performance evaluations and responsibility attributions using survey experiments to disentangle the complex causal relationships. Our findings show that partisan loyalties have pervasive effects on responsibility attributions, but somewhat weaker effects on evaluations of performance.