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Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access originally published online on July 31, 2008
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 2008 38(4):609-632; doi:10.1093/publius/pjn021
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

This article appears in the following Publius: The Journal of Federalism issue: Attribution of Governmental Blame in Times of Disaster [View the issue table of contents]

Shifting the Blame: Federalism, Media, and Public Assignment of Blame Following Hurricane Katrina

Cherie D. Maestas*, Lonna Rae Atkeson{dagger}, Thomas Croom{ddagger} and Lisa A. Bryant§
*Florida State University; maestas{at}fsu.edu
{dagger}University of New Mexico; atkeson{at}unm.edu
{ddagger}Florida State University; tc05{at}fsu.edu
§University of New Mexico; lbryant{at}unm.edu

Federalism sprang to the forefront in public debates about the response to Hurricane Katrina as officials from the national, state, and local government sought to shift blame to other levels of government. Our analysis shows that attempts by national political actors to frame the response as the fault of state government actions were successful, but the size of the effect was conditional on predispositions. Those who were more attentive to coverage were more likely to believe that state failure to call for help had a great effect on the length of time it took for national government to provide aid to New Orleans. The effect was strongest for Republicans, however, suggesting that predispositions mediate acceptance of elite frames that transfer blame.


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