Brexit and the tragedy of the Commons: how wedge issues generate detrimental outcomes

The difficulty Theresa May and Boris Johnson had in winning the backing of MPs for their Brexit strategies illustrates the impact that ‘wedge issues’ can have on party politics, write Tim Heinkelmann-Wild and Lisa Kriegmair (Ludwig-Maximilians-University). As issues like Brexit cut across traditional party lines, they are highly likely to create intra-party divisions and make compromises difficult to secure

The EU Multi-Level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games

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

How European integration affects blame games in national politics

When things go wrong, governments frequently attempt to deflect the blame by shifting it onto other actors, such as previous administrations. However, as Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair and Berthold Rittberger write, European integration has provided governments with additional opportunities for blame avoidance, such as criticising the EU’s institutions or other EU member states. Drawing on a new study, they explain how the integration process has affected national blame games

When do governments benefit from non-compliance with unpopular EU policies?

When the implementation of EU policies is likely to be unpopular, do governments benefit from non-compliance? Drawing on a new study, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger and Bernhard Zangl write that while non-compliance can be a successful political strategy, it can also backfire and increase the blame attributed to governments

Blame Dictionary (German)

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)

Blame attributions by Austrian and German MPs on EU migration policies

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 the Article "Dolce far niente? Non-compliance and blame avoidance in the EU" (Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild)

This supplementary file contains all public responsibility attributions (PRA) coded for the article "Dolce far niente? Non-compliance and blame avoidance in the EU", accepted for publication in West European Politics on 30 March 2021. The paper and online-appendix with detailed information on the coding process are available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1909938

Public responsibility attributions for contested EU border control and financial policies

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Blame shifting and blame obfuscation: The blame avoidance effects of delegation in the European Union

The 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

Blame attributions by non-Cabinet Conservative MPs during Brexit debates

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, 201