The DOI matches its Crossref record; 52 of the 52 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Attributing Blame: The Public's Response to Hurricane Katrina
Abstract
When government fails, whom do citizens blame? Do these assessments rely on biased or content-rich information? Despite the vast literatures on retrospective voting in political science and attribution in psychology, there exists little theory and evidence on how citizens apportion blame among public officials in the wake of government failure. We designed a survey experiment in which respondents ranked seven public officials in order of how much they should be blamed for the property damage and loss of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We manipulated the information provided to respondents, with some receiving the officials’ party affiliations, others receiving their job titles, and others receiving both cues. We find that party cues cause individuals to blame officials of the opposite party, but citizens make more principled judgments when provided with information about officials’ responsibilities. These results have implications for our understanding of the impact of heuristics and information on retrospective evaluations of government performance.
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Cited by
Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy
HEALY, A., & MALHOTRA, N. (2009) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055409990104 · Cited by 931
Self-citationElite Influence on Public Opinion in an Informed Electorate
BULLOCK, J. G. (2011) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055411000165 · Cited by 777
Yeager, D. S., Krosnick, J. A., Chang, L., Javitz, H. S., Levendusky, M. S., Simpser, A., & Wang, R. (2011) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1093/poq/nfr020 · Cited by 758
Retrospective Voting Reconsidered
Healy, A., & Malhotra, N. (2013) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-032211-212920 · Cited by 667
Self-citationBisgaard, M. (2015) · The Journal of Politics · doi:10.1086/681591 · Cited by 347
Metadata
- Authors
- Malhotra, N., & Kuo, A. G.
- Venue
- The Journal of Politics
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2008-01
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 120-135
- ISSN
- 0022-3816 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-2508
- OpenAlex
- W2049971933
- Cited by
- 440
- References
- 52
- FWCI
- 66.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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