Framing Effects and Comparative Social Policy Reform: Comparing Blame Avoidance Evidence from Two Experiments

Abstract

Following Paul Pierson’s work on the New Politics of the welfare state, numerous studies on welfare state reforms have shown that governments enacting welfare cuts regularly employ blame avoidance strategies and use issue frames when they communicate welfare reform policies. However, it remains largely unexplained to what extent these blame avoidance strategies really impact on the attitudes of voters on the micro level. This study sets out to fill that void in the literature. Using data on pension reforms and student grant cutbacks, the article provides experimental evidence showing that blame avoidance and framing strategies affect individual attitudes towards the proposed policies – in particular in the case of pension reforms. Moreover, in the case of pensions, the impact is conditioned by individual risk exposure. These results add significantly to the literature on blame avoidance and welfare state reform policies by indicating that successful blame avoidance may be the reason why governments are not always punished for cutbacks to the welfare state.