Blame shifting in autocracies following large-scale disasters: evidence from Turkey
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- dc.contributor.author Goldring, Edward
- dc.contributor.author Schmid, Jonas Willibald
- dc.contributor.author Apaydin, Fulya
- dc.date.accessioned 2025-10-15T09:27:45Z
- dc.date.available 2025-10-15T09:27:45Z
- dc.date.issued 2025
- dc.date.updated 2025-10-15T09:27:44Z
- dc.description Data de publicació electrònica: 08-09-2025
- dc.description.abstract Large-scale disasters, particularly when handled poorly, often spark popular outrage and threaten an autocrat's hold on power. Autocrats frequently employ blame-shifting strategies to redirect public anger and weather these storms. We examine whether blame shifting after a large-scale disaster helps or hurts an autocrat's popularity through a mixed-methods research design in the electoral autocracy of Turkey in April-July 2023, following the February 2023 earthquakes. An online survey experiment (n = 3,839) identifies the effects of blaming the aftermath of the earthquakes on the opposition, a force majeure, private construction companies, or a government minister, while focus groups explore the mechanisms behind these effects. We find that blaming the opposition or a force majeure leads to a backlash, especially among those more able to critically evaluate information. Focus groups reveal that these backlash effects are driven by voters' dismay at electoral opportunism and the incumbent's polarizing language following a large-scale disaster.
- dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
- dc.identifier.citation Goldring, Edward; Schmid, Jonas Willibald; Apaydin, Fulya. Blame shifting in autocracies following large-scale disasters: evidence from Turkey. Perspect Politics. 2025 Sep 8. DOI: 10.1017/S1537592725102120
- dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725102120
- dc.identifier.issn 1537-5927
- dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71509
- dc.language.iso eng
- dc.publisher Cambridge University Press
- dc.relation.ispartof Perspectives on Politics. 2025 Sep 8
- dc.rights © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
- dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
- dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
- dc.subject.keyword Autocratic approval
- dc.subject.keyword Blame
- dc.subject.keyword Large-scale disasters
- dc.subject.keyword Electoral autocracy
- dc.title Blame shifting in autocracies following large-scale disasters: evidence from Turkey
- dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
- dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion