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oai:recercat.cat:10230/715092025-10-16T21:57:11Zcom_2072_6col_2072_452952

Blame shifting in autocracies following large-scale disasters: evidence from Turkey Goldring, Edward Schmid, Jonas Willibald Apaydin, Fulya Autocratic approval Blame Large-scale disasters Electoral autocracy Data de publicació electrònica: 08-09-2025 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. 2025-10-15T09:27:45Z 2025-10-15T09:27:45Z 2025 2025-10-15T09:27:44Z info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 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 1537-5927 http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71509 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725102120 http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71509 eng Perspectives on Politics. 2025 Sep 8 © 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. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess application/pdf application/pdf Cambridge University Press