Allocating responsibility in multilevel government systems: voter and expert attributions in the European Union

Democratic accountability requires that citizens can assign responsibility for policy outcomes, yet multilevel structures of government complicate this task as they blur lines of accountability and leave voters uncertain about which level of government is responsible. This study examines the extent to which Europeans are able to navigate the complex and ever-changing divisions of responsibility between their national governments and the European Union (EU). Specifically, we compare citizen and expert responsibility attributions to evaluate if and how voters can competently assign policy responsibility to the European Union. Using multilevel modeling to analyze survey and media data from 27 EU member states, we demonstrate that extreme attitudes decrease citizen competence by motivating biased information processing. Yet at the contextual level, highly politicized environments result in more correct allocations of responsibility by creating an information-rich context.