Upward and Downward Responsibility Attribution by Local Politicians: The Effects of Negative Performance Feedback and Accountability

The relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is perhaps most arduous in adverse conditions: who is responsible when policy implementation fails? While citizens commonly attribute responsibility to elected politicians, politicians can in turn shift blame for negative performance to bureaucratic actors. This study makes two contributions. First, we examine two directions of responsibility attribution by local government political decision-makers, by introducing a conceptual distinction between upward and downward responsibility attribution. Upward responsibility attribution concerns appointing blame toward national level political actors who are tasked with setting the budget. Downward responsibility attribution concerns blaming the policy implementers that are tasked with the execution of policy. Second, we introduce a theoretical innovation how accountability affects the upward and downward responsibility attribution of political decision-makers. The theoretical expectation of the article is that negative performance will increase upward and downward responsibility attribution, and that this effect will be strengthened by accountability. To test the study’s hypotheses, we conduct a survey-experiment with council members in Dutch municipalities regarding the budgetary performance of youth care services. The sample consists of 1196 council members across 310 Dutch municipalities (response rate of 13.9%). The experiment consists of two experimental treatments. The first experimental treatment provides performance feedback regarding the municipality’s budgetary performance in the youth care domain. Whereas the control group receives no feedback about the budgetary performance of the municipality, the experimental group receives factual information about the municipality’s performance relative to comparable peers. The second experimental treatment primes respondents on accountability by means of three open-ended questions, in contrast with a control group that is primed on a theoretically unrelated topic (council member work-life balance). As a measure for upward and downward responsibility attribution, the respondents are then asked to distribute 100 points over three actors, to indicate which actor has most influence over budgetary youth care performance in the municipality: national government, local government, or the youth care organizations that implement policy. The manipulation checks indicate that both experimental treatments function as intended: (negative) performance feedback influences respondents’ self-perceived budgetary performance, and respondents that are primed on accountability report significantly more perceived accountability. Negative performance feedback increases external responsibility attribution of respondents, most notably upward responsibility attribution. Contrary to expectations, the results indicate that accountability reduces downward responsibility attribution in response to negative performance. We discuss these findings in light of prior research on performance feedback, responsibility attribution and accountability.