The politics of blame avoidance in complex delegation structures: the public transport crisis in Berlin

  • The article analyses the public attribution of blame and the use of presentational strategies of blame avoidance in complex delegation structures. We theorize and empirically demonstrate that complex delegation structures result in the diffusion of blame to multiple actors so that a clear allocation of responsibility becomes more difficult. The article shows that public attribution of blame follows a distinct temporal pattern in which politicians only gradually move into the centre of the blame storm. We also find that blame-takers deploy sequential patterns of presentational management and use blame shifting to other actors as a dominant strategy. However, the analysis suggests that complex delegation structures impose limitations on blame-takers’ use of blame avoidance strategies, and that sequential presentational management becomes less useful over time. The article uses media content analysis to study blame games during a major crisis of the public transport system in Berlin, Germany.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Author(s):Tobias Bach, Kai WegrichORCiD
Parent Title (English):European Political Science Review
Publication year:2019
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
First Page:415
Last Page:431
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773919000213
Release Date:2020/01/20
Volume:11
Issue:4
Licence of document (German):Metadaten / metadata
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