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Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Battle for Credit

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  • Awad, Emiel
  • Karekurve-Ramachandra, Varun
  • Rothenberg, Lawrence

Abstract

How does blaming and crediting affect the implementation of policies and what are the constraints that reputation-concerned politicians face in commenting about bureaucrats? On one hand, politicians may want to claim credit when things go well and deflect blame when outcomes go awry. On the other, the distribution of blame and credit not only affects the politicians' reputation but also those of bureaucratic agencies and potentially their willingness to work over time. To investigate this tension, we develop and analyze a model where a bureaucrat cares about his reputation vis-a-vis an interested audience, and the politician can blame the bureaucrat for failed policies or give credit for successes via cheap talk. We show that the bureaucrat can be induced to exert more effort through blame and credit, but that the politician is constrained in communication by considerations for future effort and her own reputation concerns.

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  • Awad, Emiel & Karekurve-Ramachandra, Varun & Rothenberg, Lawrence, 2023. "Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Battle for Credit," SocArXiv ajrey, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:ajrey
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ajrey
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Morris Fiorina, 1982. "Legislative choice of regulatory forms: Legal process or administrative process?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 33-66, January.
    2. Hinterleitner, Markus, 2018. "Policy failures, blame games and changes to policy practice," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 221-242, June.
    3. Ruder, Alex I., 2014. "Institutional Design and the Attribution of Presidential Control: Insulating the President from Blame," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 9(3), pages 301-335, September.
    4. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    5. Asai, Kentaro & Kawai, Kei & Nakabayashi, Jun, 2021. "Regulatory capture in public procurement: Evidence from revolving door bureaucrats in Japan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 328-343.
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    Cited by:

    1. Simon Lodato & Christos Mavridis & Federico Vaccari, 2024. "The Unelected Hand? Bureaucratic Influence and Electoral Accountability," Papers 2402.17526, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.

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