Thesis: 'Blame Avoidance and Blame Attribution in Government'

The study of blame avoidance behaviour in government has emphasised how the loss aversion of public officials makes them strongly motivated to avoid blame for negative outcomes and adopt different blame avoidance strategies. My research studies the drivers of this behaviour and its implications for modern British government. General research questions include: What factors drive blame avoidance behaviour and ‘blame cultures’ in government? How does blame avoidance motivate political and administrative decision-making? How do different blame avoidance strategies influence public opinion? I explore these questions using a multi-methods approach that involves in-depth case study process-tracing and survey experiments.