“Deflecting blame by blaming others” (Weaver, “The Politics of Blame Avoidance,” Journal of Public Policy, 6(4), 1986) is a strategy that thrives within multi-level systems characterized by complex decision-making processes and a diverse range of actors involved. Scholars interested in the mechanisms of responsibility attribution within the European Union have extensively examined blame-shifting and blame-avoidance strategies, often operating under the assumption that national politicians have incentives to attribute unpopular decisions and policy failures to EU institutions or pressures stemming from the EU’s institutional dynamics. In such contexts, it becomes challenging for citizens to assign responsibility accurately for policy outcomes, leading to what has been described as an “accountability deficit” (e.g., Hobolt and Tilley, “Blaming Europe?,” 2014) in the EU.
This book by Heinkelmann-Wild, Rittberger, Zangl, and Kriegmair offers a nuanced perspective, arguing that European blame games, under certain conditions, can actually promote political accountability rather than deflect it. In the public sphere—exemplified by media discourse—politicians, journalists, scholars, and experts exchange attributions of blame for perceived policy failures, which allows the public to assess the plausibility of these blame claims. Consequently, they argue that blame games related to EU policy failures tend to become aligned with actual responsibility by identifying those actors who have been de jure involved in policymaking and have de facto supported the policy that subsequently failed. This places considerable limitations on political actors and their attempts to “pass the buck,” as excessive or unconvincing blame-shifting could damage their credibility. Through a comprehensive analysis of high-quality press coverage across four European countries—Germany, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom—the authors illustrate that, in instances of perceived policy failures, there are typically three distinct rather than a single, diffuse blame attribution process: scapegoat games, where blame is assigned to specific EU institutions, lending way to narratives of “unaccountable technocrats” detached from citizens’ concerns; renegade games, where blame is directed at member states, frequently framing resistance to or non-compliance with EU policies as a form of behavioral deviation; and finally, diffusion games, in which no clear, accountable party is identified, and policy failures are attributed to unintended consequences arising from social, political, or economic structures. Of the 10 instances of EU policy failures examined in the study, only three can be classified as diffusion games, resulting in limited accountability and unresolved responsibility.
Defining policy failures as situations where there is widespread public dissatisfaction due to the EU’s inability to resolve a problem it is expected to address, the authors present a highly relevant and timely selection of most-similar-case designs. These approaches enable them to isolate the effects of failure type (such as failure to act, failure to comply, or failure to perform), the nature of the policy-making process (supranational, intergovernmental, or shared), and the responsibility for implementation (national, supranational, or shared) on the dynamics of accountability and blame attribution. The lack of action regarding the UN-authorized humanitarian intervention in Libya triggered a renegade game, blaming individual member states, particularly Germany, which were perceived to impede the development of a cohesive and effective EU-wide policy. Media coverage also accurately targeted Member States’ for only insufficiently implementing measures to comply with EU commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. Public criticism turned against the ECB in the case of the Outright Monetary Transaction Programme (OMT), while concerns were also raised regarding the European Commission’s lack of action concerning (from the member states’ perspective excessive) welfare entitlements for EU nationals residing in other member states. This aligns with the expectation of scapegoat games to develop in situations where a supranational actor is responsible for policy decision-making. The perceived shortcomings of the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) and the EFSM (European Financial Stability Mechanism) as models of intergovernmental policymaking were anticipated to lead to renegade games—and indeed did so. As the border control cases and the asylum system case prove, the public is also very well aware of implementation responsibilities and allocates blame for failures to the responsible actors. The authors thus recommend enhancing European policy processes by promoting transparency, simplifying procedures—rather than expanding the scope of actor participation, which may obscure responsibilities—and aligning policy implementation with policymaking to improve accountability.
In a highly systematic and thought-provoking way, the book challenges conventional wisdom about the detrimental effects of European blame games on accountability and reinvigorates the debate about the role of the public sphere for the functioning of control mechanisms within highly complex multi-level settings. However, there is also ample material for further debate. While the aggregated empirical data confirms the expectations that blame games gravitate towards true responsibilities, as the public learns about processes and political actors anticipate and adapt their behavior to increasingly accurate blame attributions, a closer look at the disaggregated data at the country level shows instances of “deviating games,” as blame games across countries are not the same. This prompts questions about why blame attribution varies across Member States, whether analyzing different states yields different results, and if accountability mechanisms align with responsibilities for failures. The finding that the expected renegade game in the Financial Assistance case (EFSF and EFSM) and the expected scapegoat game in the Sovereign Bonds case (OMT) are prevalent only in Germany (while being mainly diffusion games in other countries), whereas the Welfare entitlements case gives rise to a scapegoat game only in Austria, might point us to specific political sensitivities (and political constellations) rather than accurate blame attributions. This might also require a problematization of the fact that what is considered a policy failure might differ across member states and, accordingly, trigger different blame attributions. While for Germany (as amply reflected in its conservative media) the potential ultra vires action of the ECB raised questions of constitutional identity and gave rise to concerns of a potential erosion of democratic principles, for public debates in Spain or Italy the limited effect of the previous Securities Markets Programme (SMP) has been of bigger concern, as has been the reluctance of “frugal countries” like Germany, Austria or the Netherlands to accept greater fiscal solidarity. While media may rightly identify states as renegades rather than a diffuse European polity for failing policies, Member States (supported by public assessments in their respective countries) might still point fingers at each other. This issue is briefly addressed in the EU asylum case. Greece and Italy are mainly blamed for the malfunctioning of the asylum system, albeit depicted as victims of an unworkable system, at least in the public debates of Germany, France, Austria and the UK. If “Southern” publics were included in the analysis, would we find a stronger emphasis on the North’s behavior showing a lack of solidarity?
However, perhaps one of the most critical questions is raised only on the last page of the book: in a “post-truth world,” blame will be attributed to whomever a “political tribe” considers to be the enemy. Moreover, as the authors contend, a fractionalized media landscape in a highly polarized society would constitute a particularly hard case for their theory. While quality press tends to be reliable, its readership—about two million daily in Germany—is a small segment of “the public” compared to the threefold larger outreach of major tabloids. Correctly identifying culprits therefore does not guarantee accountability, as those exposed as “renegades” in quality media may still be re-elected for unwaveringly defending national interests by voters mobilized in other arenas.
