Voters infer performance from substantive crisis characteristics: severity, prevention spending, relief spending, and the behaviour of political elites. 5/9
The core finding is clear: electoral sanctioning after crises is overwhelmingly mediated by perceived crisis management performance. Responsibility for the crisis matters, but voters primarily ask whether incumbents managed the shock competently. 4/9
The experiment also indicates that voters’ political knowledge can be a source of heterogeneity in
reactions to crisis. More politically knowledgeable voters pay greater attention to disaster preparedness investments to judge government responsibility for crises. 8/9
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Responsibility judgments are more constrained. Voters attribute responsibility for the crisis most clearly when blame signals are plausible: reduced prevention spending, expert warnings, and - more conditionally - elite cues around the crisis. 7/9
Disaster relief matters substantially, but speed does not. Respondents rewarded larger relief efforts and visible executive involvement, while faster relief alone had little effect on performance evaluations. 6/9
Overall, the article shows that voters draw on a broader array of crisis characteristics than existing research has captured - including opposition politicisation - to assess government crisis management. Future work should test these mechanisms with observational data. 9/9
New publication with @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org: In “Crises and Electoral Accountability” I ask how voters evaluate governments after different exogenous crises - and which crisis characteristics affect performance & responsibility judgments by voters. OA: doi.org/10.1017/gov.... 1/9