Blaming Europe?: Responsibility Without Accountability in the European Union

by Sara Hobolt, James Tilley

A key component of democratic accountability is that citizens understand 'who is to blame'. Nonetheless, little is known about how citizens attribute responsibility in the European Union or how those perceptions of responsibility matter. This book presents the first comprehensive account of how citizens assign blame to the EU, how politicians and the media attempt to shift blame and finally, how it matters for electoral democracy. Based on rich and unique data sources, Blaming Europe? sheds light on all three aspects of responsibility in the EU. First, it shows that while institutional differences between countries shape citizen judgements of EU responsibility, those judgements are also highly determined by pre-existing attitudes towards the EU. Second, it demonstrates that neither politicians nor the media assign much blame to the EU. Third, it establishes that regardless of whether voters are capable of accurately assigning responsibility, they are not able to hold their EU
representatives to account via the ballot box in European elections due to the lack of an identifiable 'European government' to reward or punish. As a consequence, when citizens hold the EU responsible for poor performance, but are unable to sanction an EU incumbent, they lose trust in the EU as a whole instead. In conclusion, it argues that this 'accountability deficit' has significant implications for the future of the European Union.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Sara Hobolt is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the European Institute and the Department of Government. She is also an Associate Member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Professor Hobolt has published extensively on European Union politics, elections and referendums. Her most recent book is Blaming Europe? Responsibility without Accountability in the EU (Oxford University Press, 2014, with James Tilley). She was awarded the Best Book prize by the European Union Studies Association in 2010 for her previous book Europe in Question: Referendums on European Integration (Oxford University Press, 2009). In 2011, she received the APSA emerging scholar award for her contribution to the field of elections, public opinion and voting behaviour. She was the 2012 winner of the Nils Kim prize, awarded by the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund to a young Nordic researcher who has made an outstanding contribution in the social sciences and humanities.

Professor Hobolt is Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections. She is a frequent media commentator and has acted as the BBC television election expert in the 2009 and 2014 European elections.

Research Interests
Her research interests include European Union politics, political behaviour (particularly elections and referendums), public opinion, comparative European politics and institutions, and quantitative methods in political science. She is currently working on an ERC-funded project EUDEMOS: Constrained Democracy: Citizens’ Responses to Limited Political Choice in the European Union as well as an ESRC-funded project on attitudes towards Brexit.