Existing research shows that crises shape retrospective voting, but we know far less about the specific crisis characteristics voters use to judge incumbents - especially with regard to responsibility for crisis severity. 2/9
To answer this, I use a pre-registered survey experiment with over 800 British voters. Respondents compared crisis scenarios varying by origin, severity, expert warnings, prevention spending, opposition politicisation, PM involvement, and relief spending and speed. 3/9
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
Voters infer performance from substantive crisis characteristics: severity, prevention spending, relief spending, and the behaviour of political elites. 5/9
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
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
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
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