IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/publus/v51y2021i2p212-237..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Attribution of Responsibility for Disaster Preparedness across Three Levels of Government and the Public: Lessons from a Survey of Residents of the U.S. South Atlantic and Gulf Coast

Author

Listed:
  • Wesley Wehde
  • Matthew C Nowlin

Abstract

Using survey data collected from residents of counties along the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, we use innovative compositional data analysis techniques to examine individuals’ assignment of responsibility for hurricane preparedness across federal, state, and local officials as well as among household residents and their community. We find that the public assigns limited responsibility for hurricane preparedness to governments. Rather, respondents, especially conservatives and those with low trust in government, view individuals themselves as responsible for preparedness. Our results emphasize the role of ideology and the individualistic culture of American politics. These results also have implications for scholars who study individual attribution responsibility in multi-level systems and who may assume that individuals will assign responsibility to one of the various levels of government; however, focusing on disaster preparation in particular, our study shows that a significant number of individuals may not assign responsibility to government at any level.

Suggested Citation

  • Wesley Wehde & Matthew C Nowlin, 2021. "Public Attribution of Responsibility for Disaster Preparedness across Three Levels of Government and the Public: Lessons from a Survey of Residents of the U.S. South Atlantic and Gulf Coast," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 51(2), pages 212-237.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:51:y:2021:i:2:p:212-237.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjaa037
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2009. "Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 387-406, August.
    2. Kevin Arceneaux, 2005. "Does Federalism Weaken Democratic Representation in the United States?," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 297-311, Spring.
    3. Brad T. Gomez & J. Matthew Wilson, 2008. "Political Sophistication and Attributions of Blame in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 633-650, Fall.
    4. Katz, Jonathan N. & King, Gary, 1999. "A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 15-32, March.
    5. Jennifer Wolak, 2016. "Core Values and Partisan Thinking about Devolution," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 46(4), pages 463-485.
    6. Joshua P. Darr & Sarah D. Cate & Daniel S. Moak, 2019. "Who'll Stop the Rain? Repeated Disasters and Attitudes Toward Government," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(7), pages 2581-2593, December.
    7. Connolly, Jennifer M. & Klofstad, Casey & Uscinski, Joseph & West, Jonathan, 2020. "Public preferences for Zika policy and responsibility in the absence of partisan cues," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 402-427, September.
    8. Alan S. Gerber & Gregory A. Huber, 2010. "Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 153-173, January.
    9. Jane Fry & Tim Fry & Keith McLaren, 2000. "Compositional data analysis and zeros in micro data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 953-959.
    10. David Konisky, 2011. "Public Preferences for Environmental Policy Responsibility," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 76-100, Winter.
    11. Saundra K. Schneider & William G. Jacoby & Daniel C. Lewis, 2011. "Public Opinion Toward Intergovernmental Policy Responsibilities," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 1-30, Winter.
    12. Saundra Schneider, 2008. "Who's to Blame? (Mis) perceptions of the Intergovernmental Response to Disasters," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 715-738, Fall.
    13. Cherie D. Maestas & Lonna Rae Atkeson & Thomas Croom & Lisa A. Bryant, 2008. "Shifting the Blame: Federalism, Media, and Public Assignment of Blame Following Hurricane Katrina," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 609-632, Fall.
    14. Richard Forgette & Marvin King & Bryan Dettrey, 2008. "Race, Hurricane Katrina, and Government Satisfaction: Examining the Role of Race in Assessing Blame," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 671-691, Fall.
    15. Barber, Michael & Pope, Jeremy C., 2019. "Does Party Trump Ideology? Disentangling Party and Ideology in America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 38-54, February.
    16. John Kincaid & Richard L. Cole, 2008. "Public Opinion on Issues of Federalism in 2007: A Bush Plus?," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(3), pages 469-487, Summer.
    17. Junghwa Choi & Wesley Wehde, 2019. "Venue Preference and Earthquake Mitigation Policy: Expanding the Micro‐Model of Policy Choice," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 36(5), pages 683-701, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew C. Nowlin, 2022. "Who should “do more” about climate change? Cultural theory, polycentricity, and public support for climate change actions across actors and governments," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 39(4), pages 468-485, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Husted & David Nickerson, 2021. "Private Support for Public Disaster Aid," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Arbatli, Cemal Eren & Gomtsyan, David, 2019. "Voting retrospectively: Critical junctures and party identification," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 356-390.
    3. Ana Herrero-Alcalde & José Manuel Tránchez Martín & María Goenaga Ruiz de Zuazu, 2018. "Revisiting Responsibility Attribution within Multilevel Governments: The Role of Information," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 226(3), pages 37-58, September.
    4. Poullikka, Agni, 2024. "The 2013 Cypriot banking crisis and blame attribution: survey evidence from the first application of a bail-in in the Eurozone," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121228, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Jorge Gallego, 2015. "Natural Disasters and Clientelism: the Case of Floods and Landslides in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 12537, Universidad del Rosario.
    6. Qing Miao & Yu Shi & Meri Davlasheridze, 2021. "Fiscal Decentralization and Natural Disaster Mitigation: Evidence from the United States," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 26-50, March.
    7. Chien-shih Huang & Ruowen Shen, 2020. "Does city or state make a difference? The effects of policy framing on public attitude toward a solar energy program," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(2).
    8. Wang, Huiwen & Liu, Qiang & Mok, Henry M.K. & Fu, Linghui & Tse, Wai Man, 2007. "A hyperspherical transformation forecasting model for compositional data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 179(2), pages 459-468, June.
    9. Agni Poullikka, 2024. "The 2013 Cypriot Banking Crisis and Blame Attribution: survey evidence from the first application of a bail-in in the Eurozone," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 192, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    10. Terence Mills, 2010. "Forecasting compositional time series," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 673-690, June.
    11. Marianna Belloc & Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati, 2016. "Earthquakes, Religion, and Transition to Self-Government in ItalianCities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1875-1926.
    12. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    13. Christopher Jeffords, 2014. "Preference-directed regulation when ethical environmental policy choices are formed with limited information," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 573-606, March.
    14. Jonathan Knuckey & Myunghee Kim, 2020. "The Politics of White Racial Identity and Vote Choice in the 2018 Midterm Elections," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1584-1599, July.
    15. Arzheimer, Kai & Evans, Jocelyn, 2010. "Bread and butter à la française: Multiparty forecasts of the French legislative vote (1981-2007)," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 19-31, January.
    16. Alessandro Gavazza & Mattia Nardotto & Tommaso Valletti, 2019. "Internet and Politics: Evidence from U.K. Local Elections and Local Government Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(5), pages 2092-2135.
    17. Snyder, Ralph D. & Ord, J. Keith & Koehler, Anne B. & McLaren, Keith R. & Beaumont, Adrian N., 2017. "Forecasting compositional time series: A state space approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 502-512.
    18. Jeroen Klomp, 2020. "Election or Disaster Support?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1), pages 205-220, January.
    19. Edward P. Gardiner & David D. Herring & James F. Fox, 2019. "The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit: evidence of progress," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 477-490, April.
    20. Henrik Serup Christensen & Lauri Rapeli, 2021. "Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 63-94, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:51:y:2021:i:2:p:212-237.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/publius .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.