Who's in Charge? How Voters Attribute Responsibility in the European Union

Studies have shown that complex institutional structures often impede democratic accountability by obscuring 'clarity of responsibility'. As an emerging federal system, the European Union (EU) divides decision-making powers between multiple levels of government. Yet little is known about whether European citizens attribute responsibility accordingly. In other words, do they hold the European Union, rather than national governments, to responsible for policy outcomes that are primarily decided at the EU level? This article investigates the extent to which contextual and individual-level factors influence citizens' attribution of responsibility in the European Union. We rely on unique survey data collected in all 27 EU member states to explore how citizens attribute responsibility across five policy areas. Employing a multilevel model of responsibility judgments, our findings show that citizens' evaluations do correspond to the institutional context, but that group-serving biases also influence attribution of responsibility in the EU.