IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v8y2020i1p85-94.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Heinkelmann-Wild

    (Department of Political Science, LMU Munich, Germany)

  • Lisa Kriegmair

    (Department of Political Science, LMU Munich, Germany)

  • Berthold Rittberger

    (Department of Political Science, LMU Munich, Germany)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Lisa Kriegmair & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "The EU Multi-Level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 85-94.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:8:y:2020:i:1:p:85-94
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2522
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stéphanie Novak, 2013. "The Silence of Ministers: Consensus and Blame Avoidance in the Council of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(6), pages 1091-1107, November.
    2. Hooghe, Liesbet & Marks, Gary, 2009. "A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 1-23, January.
    3. Weaver, R. Kent, 1986. "The Politics of Blame Avoidance," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 371-398, October.
    4. Sofia Vasilopoulou & Daphne Halikiopoulou & Theofanis Exadaktylos, 2014. "Greece in Crisis: Austerity, Populism and the Politics of Blame," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 388-402, March.
    5. Swen Hutter & Edgar Grande, 2014. "Politicizing Europe in the National Electoral Arena: A Comparative Analysis of Five West European Countries, 1970–2010," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 1002-1018, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eva-Maria Euchner & Elena Frech, 2020. "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU’s Multi-Level System: Opening a Black-Box," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 72-84.
    2. Joost Berkhout & Marcel Hanegraaff & Patrick Statsch, 2020. "Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 61-71.
    3. Jeffrey King & Andrew Lugg, 2023. "Politicising pandemics: Evidence from US media coverage of the World Health Organisation," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(2), pages 247-259, May.
    4. Zoe Lefkofridi, 2020. "Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 41-49.
    5. Daniela Braun & Martin Gross & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rauh, Christian, 2015. "Communicating supranational governance? The salience of EU affairs in the German Bundestag, 1991–2013," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 116-138.
    2. Brigitte Pircher & Karl Loxbo, 2020. "Compliance with EU Law in Times of Disintegration: Exploring Changes in Transposition and Enforcement in the EU Member States between 1997 and 2016," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 1270-1287, September.
    3. Braun, Daniela & Grande, Edgar, 2021. "Politicizing Europe in Elections to the European Parliament (1994–2019): The Crucial Role of Mainstream Parties," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(5), pages 1124-1141.
    4. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    5. Chase Foster & Jeffry Frieden, 2021. "Economic determinants of public support for European integration, 1995–2018," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(2), pages 266-292, June.
    6. Hutter, Swen & Kriesi, Hanspeter, 2019. "Politicizing Europe in times of crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(7), pages 996-1017.
    7. Hanspeter Kriesi, 2016. "The Politicization of European Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54, pages 32-47, September.
    8. Thomas Winzen & Rik de Ruiter & Jofre Rocabert, 2018. "Is parliamentary attention to the EU strongest when it is needed the most? National parliaments and the selective debate of EU policies," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(3), pages 481-501, September.
    9. Silvana Târlea & Stefanie Bailer & Hanno Degner & Lisa M Dellmuth & Dirk Leuffen & Magnus Lundgren & Jonas Tallberg & Fabio Wasserfallen, 2019. "Explaining governmental preferences on Economic and Monetary Union Reform," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 24-44, March.
    10. Rauh, Christian & Zürn, Michael, 2020. "Authority, politicization, and alternative justifications: endogenous legitimation dynamics in global economic governance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 583-611.
    11. Christine Neuhold & Guri Rosén, 2019. "Introduction to “Out of the Shadows, Into the Limelight: Parliaments and Politicisation”," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 220-226.
    12. Maurits Meijers & Christian Rauh, 2016. "Has Eurosceptic Mobilization Become More Contagious? Comparing the 2009 and 2014 EP Election Campaigns in The Netherlands and France," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 83-103.
    13. Michele Scotto di Vettimo, 2022. "Measuring public support for European integration using a Bayesian item response theory model," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 171-191, June.
    14. Stella Ladi & Vasiliki Tsagkroni, 2019. "Analysing Crisis Parliamentary Discourse in Greece: Whom Should We Blame?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 729-748, July.
    15. Alessandro Del Ponte, 2021. "The influence of foreign elite rhetoric: National identity, emotions, and attitudes toward austerity," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(1), pages 155-178, March.
    16. Christoph Mikulaschek, 2023. "The responsive public: How European Union decisions shape public opinion on salient policies," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 645-665, December.
    17. Roman Senninger, 2017. "Issue expansion and selective scrutiny – how opposition parties used parliamentary questions about the European Union in the national arena from 1973 to 2013," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 283-306, June.
    18. Brigitte Pircher & Mike Farjam, 2021. "Oppositional voting in the Council of the EU between 2010 and 2019: Evidence for differentiated politicisation," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(3), pages 472-494, September.
    19. Guri Rosén, 2019. "Proving Their Worth? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Members of the European Parliament," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 266-278.
    20. Iskander De Bruycker, 2017. "Politicization and the public interest: When do the elites in Brussels address public interests in EU policy debates?," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(4), pages 603-619, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:8:y:2020:i:1:p:85-94. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.