Who Is to Blame (or Praise)? Information, Responsibility Attribution, and Service Quality in Multilevel Government

In multilevel systems, decentralization can improve accountability only if citizens can identify which level of government is responsible for public services. We conduct a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of 5,000 Italian citizens to study responsibility attribution and service quality perceptions. We find widespread misattribution of responsibility across local, regional, and central government, especially where responsibilities overlap. We then randomly provide a subset of respondents with correct information about the responsible level of government. When this feedback shifts perceived responsibility toward a politically aligned government, respondents report higher service quality. Providing feedback to respondents who answered correctly also increases reported service quality, especially for the non-aligned, suggesting a confirmation effect. Additional evidence from the order manipulation suggests that selective quality evaluation may represent the stronger bias. These findings highlight the importance of institutional clarity and the politically motivated quality assessments that can arise when responsibility is poorly understood.