The blame-avoiding effect of sanction-based accountability and its boundary conditions

Jiayuan Li · Zhenjie Yang · Jiansong Zheng

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Public Policy and Administration Research Public Administration and Governance Regulation and Compliance Studies

Abstract

Drawing on a reputation-based approach to public accountability, we conducted a series of survey experiments (N = 1,677) to test whether account-holders can mitigate blame by punishing account-givers. Results show that punishment reduces blame toward account-holders. The blame-avoiding effect depends on (1) policy outcomes, being stronger when outcomes worsen; (2) trust in account-holders, weakening when audiences distrust them; and (3) types of punishment, with substantive sanctions more effective than reputational ones. These findings contribute to public accountability and blame politics by offering causal evidence of the symbolic value of sanctions and delineating boundary conditions of blame avoidance.

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References

1990The case for motivated reasoning.2010Signaling Theory: A Review and Assessment 2006Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs 1998The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification 1986The Politics of Blame Avoidance 2009Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments 2006The Oxford handbook of public management 2003The essential public manager

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