Blame Attribution During COVID-19 in Russia

• In Event: Political Behavior and Public Opinion Under Federalism

Abstract

Whom to blame during COVID-19? Blame attribution is more complex in federal countries since power and responsibility is spread across different levels of government. Due to this diffusion, individuals have more difficulties in attributing blame for some negative economic, political, and healthcare consequences. As a result, political actors act in such a way to shift blame to other levels of government and to other political actors, especially during economic crises or some catastrophic events. No political actor wants to be punished for poor economic and political performance. Though there is extensive evidence of causal link between blame attribution and incumbent support/voting, there is limited evidence of blame shifting between federal and regional levels of government during catastrophic events in authoritarian regimes.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia, Vladimir Putin delegated all COVID-19 decisions to regional authorities. This political decentralization during COVID-19 was in contrast to the federal politics of centralization since 2000, when Russian federal authorities redistributed substantial power resources from regional to federal authorities. However, in his address to the nation during COVID-19 pandemic on April 2, 2020, Vladimir Putin distanced himself from lockdown measures enforcing regional authorities to take unpopular decisions. In the paper we show that personal address to the nation in which the President indicated that regional governors have got some additional authority to take lockdown measures in the regions, shifted the blame for economic and healthcare negative consequences from Presidential to the regional level. In the experiment we compare two conditions: the condition in which we indicate that the President of the Russian Federation has granted some additional authority to regional governors, and condition in which we exclude the message about the President of the Russian Federation indicating that the regional governors have got some additional authority to take lockdown measures in the regions. We will explore the effect on the following variables: 1) the attribution of blame for economic recession: governor and President; 2) the attribution of blame for COVID-19 cases: governor and President; 3) level of support of this political decision; 4) evaluation if negative consequences can be lower or higher if restrictive measures were taken by the President but not regional authorities. We will also explore if the difference between control and experimental conditions is moderated by such variables as subjective evaluation of how President and regional authorities managed COVID-19 pandemic, political trust, political interest, and and by subjective evaluation of how respondent’s material well-being has been changed due to COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is based on two studies: 1) a non-probability web survey in a volunteer-access panel among 300 respondents in Russia, 2) a representative probability-based CATI survey among 3,000 respondents in Russia. Our experiment contributes to the literature on blame attribution and expands our understanding of mechanisms of blame attribution in authoritarian countries with federalist systems.

Authors

• Kirill Chmel, National Research University "Higher School of Economics"

• Aigul Klimova

• Nikita Savin, National Research University "Higher School of Economics"