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Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130

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Electoral Studies

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How do citizens attribute responsibility in multilevel states? Learning,biases and asymmetric federalism. Evidence from Spain

Sandra LeónCenter for Political and Constitutional Studies, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 31 December 2010Received in revised form 16 May 2011Accepted 16 September 2011

Keywords:DecentralizationAccountabilityClarity of responsibilitySpain

E-mail address: sleon@march.es.1 Decentralization has been associated to econo

increase national budgetary deficits and undermstability (Wibbels, 2002; Rodden, 2006) and to lowprovincial governments (Remmer and Gélineau,cooperative decision-making processes betweengovernment may make it more difficult for citizenbility to any one level of government (Moore et al.,

2 From this perspective accountability is a mecpoliticians’ past actions (Key, 1966; Ferejohn, 1986)

0261-3794/$ – see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltddoi:10.1016/j.electstud.2011.09.003

a b s t r a c t

Recent empirical evidence suggests that decentralization challenges the stakes of democraticcontrol by blurring responsibility attribution between levels of government. Exploring theimplications of decentralization on accountability requires a better understanding of theconditions under which decentralization affects clarity of responsibility. The theoretical claimin this article is that these conditions are related to the particular design and duration ofdecentralization arrangements. To test this proposition, individual data from a systemwheredecentralization varies both in design and duration – the Spanish State of Autonomies – areused. Results show that clarity of responsibility has worsened where decentralization hasadopted a more intertwined (marble-cake) design and that individuals may “learn” onresponsibility attribution the longer they experience a particular distribution of competences.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction These caveats are not new and were already stressed

Avast arrayof recent empirical analyseswarns us againstsome of the optimistic assumptions that have fueled thedevolution of responsibilities to local and regional author-ities around the world.1 One of them has to do with thechallenges of decentralization on democratic account-ability. In multilevel systems, government accountabilitycrucially depends on voters’ attributing responsibility forpolicy outcomes to the responsible administration. But iffragmentation of power across levels of government blursresponsibility attribution, governments will not suffer frompoor results nor benefit from good ones and accountabilitywill be undermined.2

mic distortions thatine macro-economicer accountability of2006). In addition,different levels of

s to assign responsi-2008: 396).hanism of control of.

. All rights reserved.

long ago by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers3,but only very recently have received attention in the liter-ature. Empirical evidence is pessimistic on citizens’ limitedability to correctly ascribe responsibility between levels ofgovernment. Voters can hardly differentiate federal powersfrom subnational government competences (Cutler, 2009)and multilevel governance weakens the effects of nationaleconomic conditions on voting (Anderson, 2006a; 2009).These findings stand opposed to normative argumentsfrom the welfare economics literature, which has tradi-tionally emphasized that decentralization of authorityenhances the control of politicians’ behavior by bringinggovernments’ decisions closer to citizens’ preferences andenhancing competition among jurisdictions.4

3 “It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to deter-mine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, orseries of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one toanother with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances,that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author” (Alex-ander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, n. 70).

4 See Brennan and Buchanan 1980; Weingast 1995, Qian and Weingast1997.

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130 121

The gap between the theoretical vaunted advantages ofdecentralization and the pessimistic empirical evidencecan only be bridged by exploring the mechanisms thataccount for variations in responsibility attribution. Thispaper advances the argument that clarity of responsibilityis contingent upon both the design and duration ofdecentralization arrangements. More specifically, my firsttheoretical claim is that citizens’ capacity to allocateresponsibilities across different levels of government iscontingent upon the type of decentralization in place.When decentralization is close to the ideal “layer-cake”model of federalism – characterized by concentratingauthority and resources at one level of government – clarityof responsibility is enhanced; whereas if it follows a modelwhere decisions over expenditures and revenues are highlyintertwined (“marble-cake” model), then clarity ofresponsibility is hampered and the conditions to makeaccountability an effective control mechanism are under-mined (León, 2011).

The second hypothesis has to do with the duration ofintergovernmental arrangements and contends that thelonger citizens have experienced a particular distributionof competences, the more likely they will eventually catchup with the new vertical fragmentation of powers. Put inother words, clarity of responsibility will be enhanced bythe length of time during which intergovernmentalarrangements on revenue and expenditure powers havebeen in place.

Hypotheses will be tested with individual data on Spain,one of the countries where decentralization has developedfurther and faster during the last decades. Spain representsan excellent case to test these hypotheses because theexistence of cross-regional asymmetries in the timing anddesign of decentralization provides variation in the mostimportant explanatory variables of the theoretical model.

This article extends the extant research in several ways.First, it provides new empirical and theoretical insights inthe literature on clarity of responsibility, which so far hastraveled further in the study of the consequences of thehorizontal fragmentation in responsibility attribution5 thanin the study of the effects of multilevel governance.

The second contribution of the paper is that it charac-terizes decentralization in a dynamic way. Although theliterature tends to represent vertical fragmentation ofpowers in multilevel systems as a stable feature, empiricalevidence shows that many countries have experienced anever-changing balance of revenue sources and fiscalauthority between central government and subnationalunits during the last decades.6 There is scant theoreticaland empirical analysis on how changes in the verticaldistribution of powers may affect clarity of responsibility.Using the modification of intergovernmental arrangementsin the Spanish State of Autonomies as a case study, this

5 Research has extensively dealt with the impact of different forms ofdivided government on electoral accountability (Powell and Whitten,1993; Leyden and Borrelli, 1995; Royed et al., 2000; Lowry et al., 1998;Anderson, 2006a, 2006b, 2009; Anderson, 2000; Duch and Stevenson,2008: 252 and ff.).

6 See Hooghe et al., 2008.

article presents new evidence on how variation in thedesign of intergovernmental arrangements modifiespatterns of responsibility attribution.

The paper also takes advantage of cross-regional varia-tion in decentralization design in asymmetric federalcountries. Although asymmetries in the fragmentation ofpowers do not represent an exceptional feature of decen-tralized systems (Watts, 2008: 16), few studies have delvedinto its implications in responsibility attribution andaccountability.7 This article advances some theoreticalarguments on decentralization design that may be repli-cated in other asymmetric federal states.

Finally, few studies analyze clarity of responsibility bydirectly measuring responsibility attribution, in partbecause there is scant individual data that ask explicitly onresponsibility attribution on more than one politicalauthority.8 The paper provides a direct measure of citizens’ability to ascribe responsibilities by measuring the numberof policies where individuals are able to correctly identifythe most responsible level of government.

Thepaper is organizedas follows: in section two, I presentthe hypotheses on the relationship between the design andtiming of decentralization arrangements and clarity ofresponsibility. Section three includes a description of varia-tion in decentralization design across Spanish AutonomousCommunities and over time as well as a set of predictionsderived from the two general hypotheses. The empiricalanalysis is presented in section four andfinally, in sectionfiveI introduce some concluding remarks and suggest somewaysin which current research on the topic can be furthered.

2. Decentralization, accountability and clarity ofresponsibility

The literature on decentralization emphasizes differenttheoretical arguments by which the vertical fragmentationof powers can discipline politicians and make them moreresponsive to citizens’ demands. The first is that decen-tralization brings government closer to citizens’ prefer-ences as well as broadens citizens’ direct participation inpublic decision-making through local and regional elec-tions. Decentralization enhances citizens’ control ofincumbents because theymay usemultilevel governance topressure elected officials of various governments to achievetheir desired outcomes (Downs, 1999). The second mech-anism has been developed by public finance theorists, whohave emphasized the impact of fiscal decentralization andeconomic competition among jurisdictions to enhanceincumbents’ fiscal responsible behavior (Weingast, 1995;Qian and Weingast, 1997; Brennan and Buchanan, 1980).This argument assumes that competences are neatlydivided across levels of government and each administra-tion is evaluated on the basis of policy outcomes thatbelong to its areas of responsibility, which in turn implies

7 Recent research on economic voting has taken into account cross-regional (institutional or economic) differences within multi-tieredsystems to explain incumbents’ electoral performance. See Ebeid andRodden (2006) and Anderson (2006a).

8 See Rudolph 2003b, 193; Peffley 1984, 279–280; Cutler 2009: 631.

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130122

assuming voters are able to distinguish responsibilitiesacross levels of government.

However, these statements may seem unrealistic, giventhe complexities associated with decentralized powerstructures in multilevel systems. For instance, the idealizedcontexts where fiscal federalismmodels operate are far fromthe actual vertical distributionof powers and inpractice thereis strong intergovernmental interdependence in expenditureand revenue decisions. This turns responsibility attributionfor policy outcomes into a daunting task for voters.

Accountability and clarity of responsibility are inti-mately related because without clarity, accountabilitycannot work.9 When responsibility is blurred, voters arenot capable of establishing a causal connection betweenpoliticians’ past actions and policy outcomes. Electionsmay then turn out to be an ineffective mechanism to holdgovernments accountable, as voters’ punishments orrewards may be barely connected to their past perfor-mance in office. In addition, if citizens cannot clearlydistinguish who is responsible for what, they not onlybecome more vulnerable to politicians’ blurring10 strate-gies but also create incentives for the latter to developsuch strategies.

Some of the most recent literature on the topic hasuncovered the challenges that decentralization poses onresponsibility attribution and accountability (Cutler, 2004,2009, Anderson, 2006a, 2006b, 2009; Rudolph, 2003a;2003b) by showing evidence on how voters barelydistinguish governments’ powers and the consequencesthat this may have on a weakening of economic voting(Anderson, 2009).

A straightforward conclusion from those studies wouldbe that a blurring of clarity of responsibility is theunavoidable cost of decentralization. However, aworseningof responsibility attribution may seem a too blunt effect toconclude on the challenges that decentralization poses onaccountability. Decentralization may blur responsibilityattribution in some areas but not in others. For instance,public services that involve a direct interaction betweenthe beneficiary and the level of government responsible forits provision, such as education or health care, may bemorevisible for individuals. Consequently, citizens may be moreknowledgeable in responsibility attribution in those policyareas than in others because they learn by interacting withthe responsible administration. In summary, in order toevaluate the extent of the challenges of decentralization ondemocratic accountability it is necessary to further disen-tangle the conditions under which decentralization affectsclarity of responsibility.

I tackle this task by providing new theoretical insightsin the relationship between responsibility attribution anddecentralization. My argument is that clarity of

9 Accountability is an electoral mechanism that citizens use to holdpoliticians responsible for the outcomes derived from their past actions(Cheibub and Przeworski, 1999, 225). This requires, they are capable todistinguish who is responsible for what (Powell, 2000, 51).10 These strategies consist in blaming other levels of government tojustify bad policy outcomes or in claiming credit for successful policiesthat do not fall within their sphere of authority (Weaver, 1986; McGraw,1990; McGraw et al., 1993; Maravall, 1999).

responsibility will be contingent upon the specific designand duration of intergovernmental arrangements inmultilevel states. More specifically, I predict that clarityof responsibility will be enhanced when the distributionof powers across levels of government resembles a layer-cake decentralized model, that is, when authority overexpenditures and revenues clearly fall under the sphereof competences of one level of government. If, on thecontrary, it follows a cooperative model that results ina more intertwined structure of competences acrosslevels of government, then clarity of responsibility will behampered (León, 2011). This hypothesis is connectedwith a growing literature on decentralization thatstresses the importance of focusing on the specific designof intergovernmental arrangements in order to under-stand the causes and consequences of decentralization(Ordeshook and Shvetsova, 1997; Rodden and Wibbels,2002; Bird et al., 1998; Ter-Minassian, 1997).

My second theoretical argument focuses on citizens’ability to learn on responsibility attribution over time.When new intergovernmental arrangements are at place,it takes time for citizens to update their knowledge onresponsibility attribution and be aware of the compe-tences in the hands of each level of government. Citizensmay keep holding for a while the previous distribution ofcompetences when mapping responsibilities. But afterexperiencing a particular distribution of powers fora certain period of time, they may eventually improvetheir knowledge on responsibility attribution. Put indifferent words, there is a “learning process” that allowscitizens to catch up with responsibility attribution, so Iexpect clarity of responsibility to be higher the longer theperiod citizens experience a particular distribution ofpowers. My argument challenges the traditional pessi-mistic literature on public opinion that reveals that citi-zens have limited information about basic political facts(Campbell et al., 1976).11

3. The Spanish case

Since the beginning of the 1980s, Spain has experiencedan ongoing process of decentralization that has grantedregional governments (Autonomous Communities, ACshereafter) further powers over expenditures and revenues.This process has been asymmetric across ACs, whichmeansthat both revenue and expenditure powers and the lengthof time during which those arrangements have been inplace varies across regions and within regions over time.Spain therefore represents an excellent case to testprevious hypotheses, since it provides variation – bothacross regions and within regions over time- with regard tothe two explanatory variables (design and length ofdecentralization arrangements) whereas other factors thatmay affect clarity of responsibility are controlled.

11 Early works on this topic were pessimistic. Studies from the ColumbiaUniversity and the University of Michigan (see Lazarsfeld et al., 1968;Campbell et al., 1976) provided evidence on individuals’ low levels ofpolitical sophistication and concluded that voters were unable tounderstand the political world. For a review of this literature see Lago andTorcal 2006.

Table 1Decentralization path and evolution over time.

Decentralizationpath

DecentralizationDesign

Changes in competencesbetween 1998 and 2007

Decentralizationdesign 2007

Span oftime since last policyarea was transferredto the region

Hypotheses: Clarityof responsibility between1998 and 2007

Slow-track Layer-cake Expendituredecentralizationþ fiscal decentralization

Intertwined 6 years Decreases

Mixed-track Intertwined Fiscal decentralization Layer-cake 14 years IncreasesFast-track Layer-cake No significant change Layer-cake 17 years Increases

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130 123

Institutional variation in Spain results from the threedifferent paths regions followed to access autonomyafter theapproval of the 1978 Constitution (see Column 1 of Table 1).The first path was followed by the ten AutonomousCommunities that accessed autonomy with a lower level ofrevenue and expenditure powers (the so-called slow-trackregions)12. These regions were not transferred competencesover expenditure powers until the secondhalf of the 1990s.13

The second path was followed by five regions thataccessed autonomy with a higher level of expenditurepowers but low revenue powers (mixed-track regions).14

Finally, the Basque Country and Navarre (fast-trackregions) accessed autonomy with high levels of fiscalautonomy and expenditure powers.

In fast-track and low-track regions powers were moreneatly divided across levels of government (see Column 2in Table 1). In both contexts there was a level of govern-ment that concentrated powers and clearly predominatedover the other (the central government in the case of slow-track regions and the regional government in the case offast-track regions). On the contrary, in mixed-track regionsdecentralization designwasmore intertwined, as therewasno level of government that clearly predominated over theother and policy outcomes were the result of a mixture ofnational and regional actions.

Since the mid 1990s ongoing decentralization in Spainhas resulted in a new distribution of competences acrosslevels of government. Column 3 in Table 1 summarizesthese changes. Slow-track regions have received powersover primary education and health care and new compe-tences over revenues; whereas mixed-track regions havebasically increased their powers over revenues. This meansthat at the end of the 2000s, slow-track regions are virtuallyidentical in their expenditure and revenue powers tomixed-track regions. Finally, fast-track regions haveremained the same during this period. The only butsignificant difference in the distribution of competences

12 The slow-track process was followed in Extremadura, Castilla-León,Castilla la Mancha, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Aragón, Murcia, BalearicIslands and Madrid. For a review of the main characteristics of thedecentralization process in Spain see Aja (2003); Beramendi and Máiz(2004).13 In 1992 the Autonomous Pacts (Pactos Autonómicos) granted slow-track regions the same authority powers than fast-track Communities.14 Three regions followed the mixed-track path: Catalonia, Galicia andAndalusia. In 1982 Valencia and Canary Islands were endowed with thesame level of expenditure powers than mixed-track regions, althoughthey had accessed autonomy following the slow-track process.

between regional governments that remains is the regionalsystem of financing, which makes fast-track regionsdifferent to the rest (Ruiz Almendral, 2003).15

Following the two general hypotheses I presented in theformer section, I elaborate some predictions on the rela-tionship between changes in design and duration ofdecentralization and clarity of responsibility. The first set ofhypotheses deals with within region changes over time inclarity of responsibility (hypothesis 1–3); the fourthhypothesis makes some predictions on the evolution ofcross-regional variation in clarity of responsibility (hypoth-esis 4) and, finally, hypothesis 5 makes some statements onindividuals’ biases in responsibility attribution.

First, I predict that, as a result of the new distribution ofpowers, clarity of responsibility in slow-track regions willdecrease because decentralization reforms have resulted ina more intertwined distribution of competences. In the mid1990s decentralizationwas limited and central governmentstill stood as the most relevant level of government, as themajority of expenditure and revenue powers was in itshands and the regional administration had a secondary rolein service provision (see row 1 in Table 1).

At the end of the 2000s, slow-track regional govern-ments had received powers for the provision andmanagement of most important public services and hadbeen transferred extended powers over revenues. Thesechanges turned the distribution of powers into a moreintertwined one. In addition, the span of time during whichcitizens have experienced this new distribution of compe-tences is relatively short (see column 4 in Table 1). Thismeans it is likely that citizens are still in a sort of “transitionperiod” in which they are getting used to the new map ofcompetences across levels of government and, therefore,less likely to identify responsibilities correctly. In sum, theeffect of decentralization design and duration go in thesame direction: a worsening of clarity of responsibility.

Second, I predict that individuals’ residing inmixed-trackregions will improve their ability to ascribe responsibilitiesacross levels of government. Mixed-track regions have held

15 The Foral regime is the regional system of financing that operates inNavarre and the Basque Country and grants these regions full autonomyover taxation. The remaining 15 regions are financed through the“Common system of regional financing”, which has traditionally grantedthem limited competences over taxation. However, revenue decentral-ization under the Common system of financing has gradually increasedover time and since the last reform of the system, in 2009, it has cededregional governments 50% of VAT and the income tax and 58% of exciseduties.

17 The survey was conducted in various regions by different institutions:Galicia (Escola Galega de Administración Pública), Andalusia (Instituto deEstudios Sociales Avanzados), Castilla-León and Basque Country (Centro deInvestigaciones Sociológicas) and Catalonia (Fundació Pi i Sunyer). TheCentro de Investigaciones Sociológicas pooled the various datasets intoa unified database (survey code: CIS 2734).18 Surveys differ in the number of regional samples. In 1998 the surveyis made of 17 regional samples (one for each AC), whereas in the 2007survey there are only 5 regional samples (Andalusia, Castilla-León, Cat-alonia, Galicia and the Basque Country). The pooled dataset includes

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130124

competences over health care, education and social servicesfor around 17 years, a span of time long enough for citizensto make them progressively aware of the distribution ofexpenditure responsibilities across levels of government. Inaddition, the most important change in regional govern-ments’ powers since the mid 1990s has been an increase infiscal decentralization (with the reform of the regionalfinancing system in 2001). I contend that the span of timeduring which these competences have been in the hands ofregional governments together with the increase in regionalgovernments’ powers over ceded taxes have stressed thepredominance of the regional level of government againstthe central. The fragmentation of powers has come closer toa “layer-cake model”, which I expect to have a positiveimpact in clarity of responsibility.

Third, fast-track regions have not received significant newcompetences since the mid 1990s, but I predict that citizens’capacity to allocate responsibilities between the national andregional incumbent will improve as a result of a “learningprocess” that takes place as individuals experience a partic-ular distribution of competences for a long time.

The fourth hypothesis stems from the previous ones:because I expect clarity of responsibility to decrease overtime in slow-track regions and increase in mixed-trackregions, I also expect differences in clarity of responsibilitybetween these two groups to converge over time.

The fifth and final hypothesis relates to the relationshipbetween decentralization design and biases in responsi-bility attribution. My argument is that individuals mayexhibit a bias in their knowledge on ‘who does what’toward the traditional predominant level of government intheir territory. This means that in regions where the centralgovernment has traditionally held more powers, citizensmay remain more knowledgeable in policy areas that fallunder central government’s hands and perform relativelyworse in regional policy areas. And the other way around:in regions where the regional government has long hadcontrol over a wide range of competences, citizens mayperform better in responsibility attribution in those policyareas that fall under regional governments’ hands than inthose in the hands of the central government (León,2011).16 The empirical analysis I carry out in the nextsection will uncover whether biases in responsibilityattributions have remained over time and are correlated todecentralization design.

The summary of hypotheses goes as follows,

H1: Clarity of responsibility in slow-track regions willdecrease over time

16 Previous empirical evidence using data from 1998 (León, 2011) showedthat in slow-track regions, where the central government has had a strongrole in competences for a long period of time, individuals performed verywell in areas that fell under central government competences, but tended toexaggerate its role in policy areas that had been already transferred to theregional government (a failure I defined as a “centralist bias”). On thecontrary, individuals in fast-track regions (where regional governments hadheld higher competences and for a long period of time) performed verywellinassigningresponsibility to regionalpolicyareasbut tended tooverstate theresponsibility of regional governments in competences that had alwaysremained in the hands of central government.

H2: Clarity of responsibility in mixed-track regions willimprove over timeH3: Clarity of responsibility in fast-track regions willimprove over timeH4: Cross-regional patterns of responsibility attributionwill convergeH5: Individuals hold biases in responsibility attribution thatare correlated to each region’s decentralization track:individuals in slow-track regions will exhibit a bias towardcentral government (they will perform better in responsi-bility attribution for policy areas that fall within the centralgovernment’s sphere of competences) whereas in fast-trackregions theywill exhibit a bias toward regional government

4. Empirical analysis

I use individual data from a survey conducted in 1998 bythe Spanish Centre of Sociological Research (CIS) anda survey conducted by several Spanish institutions in2007.17 In order to test my hypotheses I have created a newdataset by pooling both surveys, so the new datasetcontains about 12,000 observations from five AutonomousCommunities.18 Regions can be grouped according to theirinitial decentralization path: slow-track path (Castilla-León); mixted-track (Andalusia, Catalonia and Galicia) andthe fast-track path (Basque Country).

The dependent variable, clarity of responsibility, hasbeen operationalized as a scale (Knowledge Scale) thatmeasures individuals’ capacity to correctly identify themost responsible level of government (local, regional orcentral) over four policy areas: education, health care,housing and unemployment.19 The responsible level ofgovernment for each of these policy areas varies acrossregions and has changed over time. In Table 2 I summarizecorrect responses for each region and year.

The corresponding survey question asks individuals toidentify the level of government that is most responsiblefor each policy area.20 Thus the scale takes value 0when the

these 5 Autonomous Communities.19 I only included in the scale of knowledge those policy areas that: a) areincluded in both surveys both in 1998 and 2007; and b) clearly fall under thesphere of authority of one level of government. Otherwise, Iwould not be ableto identify if individuals give a correct answer. For instance, “security” isa policy area included in the both questionnaires. However, I have excluded itfrom the analysis because government functions in this area are largely sharedbetween local, regional and central governments.20 The survey question of the 1998 survey asks: ‘Which is the mostresponsible level of government (central government, regional govern-ment or local government) if things go well or bad in the following policyareas?’ The survey question of the 2007 is slightly different: “Which is themost responsible level of government for the administration of thefollowing services?”

Table 3Intergovernmental distribution of powers by policy area in 1998 and 2007.

Policy Area Responsible level of government

1998 2007

Central Regional Central Regional

Health Care X (slow-track) X (mixed andfast-track)

X

Education X (slow-track) X (mixed andfast-track)

X

Housing X XUnemployment X X

Source: Spanish 1978 Constitution; Aja (2003); Pola (1999).

Table 2Distribution of frequencies of the dependent variable (Scale of Knowledge).

Scale Freq. Percent.

0 254 2.641 2483 25.812 2272 23.623 3589 37.314 1021 10.61

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130 125

respondent fails to assign responsibility and value 1 whenshe answers correctly.21 The scale has a potential minimumof 0 and a maximum of 4.22 For instance, if the scale vari-able takes value 2 it means that out of four policy areas therespondent was able to assign responsibilities correctlyover two (see Table 3).

The independent variable with which I measurechanges in responsibility attribution over time is a dummylabeled “Year”, which is coded as 1 when observationsbelong to the 2007 survey and 0 when they are from the1998 survey. To capture changes in the Scale of Knowledgeacross surveys I interact the five regional dummies, eachone representing a region, with the year variable, Regiondummy*Year. In addition, regional dummies allow me toanalyze whether from 1998 to 2007 there has been cross-regional convergence in responsibility attribution.

Individuals’ knowledge on responsibility attributionmay be positively correlated with general political knowl-edge, so I introduce in the econometric model controlvariables that are associated to political information. Thereare shortcuts that citizensmay use to obtain information onpolitics and make reasoned political choices.23 Informationmay come from what other people say or write. Forinstance, electoral participation may generate knowledgebecause they provide individuals with opportunities toobtain information from both their own experience and thepolitical environment. Other variables that may be posi-tively correlated with political knowledge are education,24

work status25 and age.These factors have been operationalized through the

following independent variables: Education (0 no studies

21 Categories “Not know” and “Not answered” are coded as missing. Byonly leaving in the sample individuals that do answer the question onresponsibility attribution I provide a more accurate measurement ofindividuals’ knowledge on the distribution of competences and avoid theproblem of having a very low rate of individual responses in the BasqueCountry (Urquizu-Sancho, 2006). However, empirical results are robust tothe estimation of econometric models with a larger sample whereresponses of “Not know” are coded as 0.22 This variable resembles the Political Knowledge Scale created by DelliCarpini and Keeter (1996). This scale measures knowledge of basic civics,political parties and people prominent in public affairs. The scale wasconstructed by coding with 1 point for each item answered correctly andno points for items not answered or answered incorrectly.23 On informational shortcuts, see Lupia and Mccubins (1998) andHuckfeldt and Sprague (1987).24 Education is frequently used as an explanatory factor of individuals’political sophistication (Stephen E. Bennett (1994) and Luskin (1990)).25 Work status is included because personal interrelations at work mayrepresent a source of information for individuals. Anthony Downs (1957),in his “Theory of Democracy” argues that citizens can reduce informationcosts by obtaining political information from personal contacts.

and primary; 1 secondary education; 2 lower universityand 3 high-university and postgraduate education); Workstatus (0 retired, unemployed, housewife or student; 1employed); Electoral participation (1 if the respondentparticipated in previous general elections; 0 otherwise) andindividuals’ Age and Age-squared (to capture a potentialnon-linear correlation between age and politicalknowledge).

In addition, I introduce political variables to control forbiases in responsibility attribution thatmay have to dowithrespondents’ levels of identification with a particular levelof government (central or regional). Failures in responsi-bility attribution may emerge if individuals regard asresponsible for policy outcomes the level of governmentwith which they feel more closely identified (and not theone with actual competences); or the level of governmentthat is controlled by their preferred party (when they donot distinguish the level of government from the politicalparty that controls it) (see Brown, 2010; Malhotra and Kuo,2009).

Accordingly, I control for individuals’ national identity,which measures respondents’ self-identification witha particular level of government (‘Only Spanish’ is coded as1; ‘more Spanish than from the region’ is coded as 2; ‘AsSpanish as from the region’ is coded as 3; and ‘More from theregion than Spanish’ is coded as 4 and ‘only from the region’is coded as 5). I also introduce ideology as a control vari-able, as it may be correlated to political knowledge (Fiorina,1990). Ideology is operationalized as a scale where 1 means“extreme-left” and 10 “extreme-right”. In addition, in orderto control for partisanship,26 I calculate the absolutedifference between the respondent’s self-reported ideology(0–10 scale) and the position in the ideology scale that therespondent ascribes to the incumbent regional party(ideological distance). No other variables were available inboth surveys to measure individuals’ partisanship. Finally, Icontrol for the evaluation of regional economic conditions(1 Very Good, 2 Good, 3 So–so, 4 Bad, 5 Very Bad), as eval-uations of economy may be correlated with partisan pref-erences (Maravall and Przeworski, 2001).

The econometric model is estimated with OLS and takesthe following form:

26 Rudolph (2003a; 2003b) finds that responsibility judgments areheavily dependent on partisan identification.

Table 4Regression Results.

Model (1)

Andalusia �0.810*** (0.0742)Catalonia �0.299*** (0.0704)Galicia �0.755*** (0.0844)Basque Country �0.221** (0.0957)2007 �0.660*** (0.0660)Andalucia*2007 0.730*** (0.0900)Catalonia*2007 0.375*** (0.0843)Galicia*2007 0.862*** (0.0965)Basque C.*2007 1.026*** (0.108)Age 0.000428 (0.00450)Age^2 �3.66e�06 (4.52e-05)

Education (c:no studies & primary)Secondary 0.0384(0.0343)Lower university �0.0305 (0.0486)High univ.& postgrad. 0.155*** (0.0479)Electoral participation 0.0101 (0.0372)Occupation �0.0333 (0.0307)

Identity (c:As Spanish as from the region)Only Spanish �0.0912* (0.0520)More Spanish than region 0.0412 (0.0460)More region than Spanish �0.00509 (0.0355)Only region �0.00226 (0.0482)Ideology �0.0115* (0.00697)Ideological distance 0.0103 (0.00667)

Regional economy c: Neither good nor badVery Good 0.0405 (0.119)Good 0.0769** (0.0336)Bad 0.0353 (0.0344)Very bad -0.0962* (0.0582)Constant 2.765*** (0.128)Observations 5711R-squared 0.080

Robust standard errors in parentheses ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

27 For instance, using data from 2007, the percentage of individualswhose primary identity is national (“Only Spanish”) and ascriberesponsibility to the central government for health services is 33%;whereas among those individuals with regional identities (“Only from theregion”) the percentage drops to 20%. As for competences on education,the percentages are 37% and 21%, respectively. The same bias is foundusing the ideology scale: 40% of individuals in the extreme-right ascriberesponsibilities for health care services to central government whereasthe percentage drops to 34% among extreme-left individuals. As forcompetences in education the percentages are 46% and 30%, respectively.28 A separate analysis by policy area shows that improvement inresponsibility attribution responds to better performance in education,health care and housing, but not in unemployment, a policy area in whichlevels of responsibility attribution remains the same (results not shown).

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130126

Yknowledge scale ¼ bRegiondummy�YearþdRegionþdYear

þbElectoralparticipationþbEducation

þbWorkstatusþbElectoralparticipation

þbAgeþbAge2þbNational identity

þ ßIdeologyþbIdeologicaldistance

þbregionaleconomyþe (1)

4.1. Testing within region variation in responsibilityattribution

Regression results are exhibited in Table 4 and theyshow that individuals’ capacity to ascribe responsibilitiescorrectly is positively correlated to education, age andelectoral participation, but coefficients are only signifi-cantly different from zero for some categories of theEducation variable. In addition, respondents that areexposed to personal interactions at work are not signifi-cantly more capable of allocating responsibilities acrossdifferent levels of government, as the coefficient of theOccupation variable shows a negative coefficient with non-significant p-values. Age generates knowledge up toa certain limit, above which its impact is negative, althoughcoefficients are not significantly different from zero.

Finally, as for political control variables, individuals’subjective national identity and ideology are significantly

correlated to individuals’ performance on responsibilityattribution. For instance, respondents who define them-selves as “only Spanish” perform worse than those whohold mixed identities (“as Spanish as from the region”);whereas the negative and significant coefficient of theIdeology variable indicates that the more to the right in theideology scale, the worse the performance in responsibilityattribution. Actually, identity and ideology are correlated:individuals on the right-wing side tend to hold more“national” identities (“only Spanish” or “more Spanish thanfrom the region”) than leftist individuals. Both types ofindividuals perform worse in responsibility attributionbecause they tend to overemphasize levels of responsibilityof the central government, that is, they ascribe responsi-bility over regional policy areas to central government.27

To better evaluate whether the interaction coefficientsof Region dummy*Year correspond with my hypotheses, Ihave estimated each region’s predicted values for 1998 and2007 and calculated levels of significance of the differences,which are exhibited in Table 5. Results support hypotheses1 and 3, but they only partially corroborate hypothesis 2.

As predicted in hypothesis 1, individuals from the slow-track region (Castilla-León) exhibit lower scores inresponsibility attribution in 2007 than in 1998. This findingsuggests that recent changes in decentralization designtoward a more intertwined distribution of competences,together with the short period of time during which thesearrangements have been in place, have resulted in a moreintertwined distribution of competences between admin-istrations that hampers individuals’ ability to identify theresponsible level of government across policy areas.

As far as mixed-track regions is concerned (Andalusia,Catalonia and Galicia), empirical findings are not conclusive.On the one hand, the Scale of Knowledge has increased inGalicia and Andalusia, which suggests that clarity of respon-sibility has improved over time in these regions, althoughdifferences are only significantly different from zero forGalicia. On the other hand, respondents from Catalonia’sattributions of responsibility in 2007 is significantly lowerthan in1998, afinding that contradictsmy secondhypothesis.

Finally, individuals from the Basque Country performbetter in responsibility attribution in 2007 than in 1998.Given that no significant changes in decentralizationarrangements have taken place during this period, resultssuggest that higher clarity of responsibility may be theconsequence of individuals’ gradual learning over time onthe distribution of powers across levels of government.28

Fig. 1. Predicted values of the dependent variable (Scale of Knowledge) for1998 and 2007.

Table 5Predicted values of the dependent variable (Scale of Knowledge).

1998 2007 Difference

Slow-track (Castilla-León) 2,77 2,11 �0,66**Mixed-track (Galicia) 2,02 2,22 0,20**Mixed-track (Catalonia) 2,47 2,19 �0,28**Mixed-track (Andalusia) 1,96 2,03 0,07Fast-track (Basque Country) 2,55 2,92 0,37**

**95% confidence interval scale of knowledge ranges from 0 to 4.

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130 127

4.2. Cross-regional differences in responsibility attribution

The fourth hypothesis predicts that cross-regional varia-tion in responsibility attribution will diminish over time. InFig. 1 I exhibit regression predicted values for each region for1998 and 2007. Results show that cross-regional variance inresponsibility attribution has decreased over time so that theu-shape correlation in 1998 has virtually disappeared in2007.29 The standard deviation of predicted values in 1998was0,40,whereas it is 0,07 in2007. Themaximumdifferencebetween the highest predicted value was 0.88 in 1998 and itdecreased to 0.11 in 2007. These results partially supporthypothesis 4: the gradual leveling process in competencesbetween mixed and slow-track regions has resulted in someconvergence in responsibility attribution. Put in differentwords, as cross-regional asymmetries in decentralizationdesign between mixed and slow-track regions have dis-appeared, individuals have become more similar in theirability to identify the most responsible level of governmentfor different policy areas However, the explaining mecha-nismthat accounts for convergencedoesnot fullycorrespondwith the mechanism I presented in hypothesis 4 becauseconvergence only results from a worsening in clarity ofresponsibility in the slow-track region and not from animprovement in responsibility attribution in mixed mixed-track regions, as hypothesized. The average performance ofmixed-track regions stays the same (2.1) over time.

4.3. Do citizens hold biases in responsibility attribution?

Finally, to test whether there exist biases in responsi-bility attribution I use individual data from the surveyconducted in 2007.30 I run econometric model (1) on twodifferent dependent variables. In the first model thedependent variable is a Scale of Knowledge based on policyareas that fall within regional governments’ sphere ofcompetences: education, health care and housing. In the

29 I have shown elsewhere that differences in responsibility attributionacross regions are correlated with variation in decentralization design(León, 2011). Using data from the survey on attribution of responsibilityconducted in 1998, the empirical analysis indicated that the relationshipbetween clarity of responsibility and decentralization design had a u-shape: citizens were better able to ascribe responsibilities in regionswhere the level of decentralization was either very low (slow-track) orvery high (fast-track) – that is, where there was a level of governmentthat concentrated powers and clearly predominated over the other.Where competences were more intertwined (mixed-track regions), indi-viduals performed worse.30 I use this survey because the question on responsibility attributionincludes three policy areas that mainly fall within central government’ssphere of competences and three policy areas that belong to regionalgovernments.

second model the Scale of Knowledge only contains policyareas that primarily fall under control of central govern-ment: immigration, pensions and unemployment.

Regression models are included in the Appendix.31 InFig. 2 I show the predicted values of the Scale of Knowledgefor both regional and central policy areas. Results indicatethat, as expected, there exists a “regionalist bias” in theBasque Country (fast-track) and a “centralist bias” in Castilla-León (slow-track).32 Respondents in the Basque Countryperformbest in ascribing responsibilities over regional policyareas andworst in responsibility attribution over policyareasthat fall within central government’s sphere of powers. Thisempirical result is consistent with previous findings (León,2011). In Castilla-León individuals perform better inresponsibility attribution in central policy areas than inregional ones because they keep assigning responsibilities tocentral government over regional competences. This findingcorresponds with the fifth hypothesis, since in this regioncentral government has traditionally had a prominent role.

The existence of a “regionalist bias” in the BasqueCountry not only gives us a better idea of the mechanisms atwork on the relationship between decentralization andclarity of responsibility but also qualifies previous state-ments on the “learning process” of individuals in this region.Individuals in the Basque Country exhibit the highest scoresin clarity of responsibility in 2007. These are the result ofa very high percentage of correct answers in responsibilityattribution over regional policy areas (three out of fourpolicy areas that make up the dependent variable fall withinthe regional sphere of competences) but not over centralgovernment policies. Individuals’ comparative advantagelies in those policy areas that form part of the responsibili-ties of the most predominant level of government in theirregion. Put in other words: it is not that individuals performbetter because they know who does what for each policyarea. The logic seems to be the opposite: they identify the

31 The econometric model used for these regressions is the same asmodel (1).32 A two-mean comparison test indicates that predicted values forcentral and regional policy areas are significantly different in each region.

Fig. 2. Decentralization design and clarity of responsibility over policy areas.

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130128

most responsible level of government for the bulk of deci-sions in their jurisdiction and then ascribe responsibilitiesover policy areas accordingly.

Results in Fig. 2 not only corroborate hypothesis 5, butexhibit data that deserve special mention, as well. Forinstance, performance in responsibility attribution inregional policy areas is very low in Andalusia, Galicia andCatalonia. Although regional governments in these regionshave been the most important administration in providingeducation, health care and housing for more than 20 years,still 47% of respondents fail in identifying the mostresponsible level of government over these policies. On thecontrary, for central government policy areas individualsonly fail 28% of the times, particularly in Galicia, whichexhibits a strong “centralist bias”. This may be one of thereasons why H2 was not fully corroborated in previoussections, since the Scale of knowledge was created out of 4policy areas (housing, education, health care and unem-ployment), of which 3 belong to regional powers.

One reason why this bias exists may have to do withdecentralization design in mixed-track regions. As wasexplained above, in these regions the distribution ofexpenditure and revenue powers has traditionally providedregional governments with full autonomy over the provi-sion of most important public services, but not over taxes.33

This distribution of fiscal and expenditure powersmay havehampered the visibility of regional governments. Put indifferent words, it may be the case that only when bothexpenditures and taxes are greatly concentrated at theregional level regional institutions arise as a clearly sepa-rated and autonomous tier of government.34 In 2009 the

33 Survey data reveals that citizens still have a very incompleteknowledge on the distribution of tax powers across levels of government.For instance, 68% of respondents think that they pay the income tax tothe central administration; whereas 11% of respondents believe they payit to the regional government and only 21% answer correctly and ascribethe responsibility over the income tax to both administrations (see dataon Opinión Pública y Política Fiscal, 2007).34 This seems to be the case in the Basque Country, although, as dis-cussed above, other risks are associated to this decentralization design,more specifically, the emergence of a regionalist bias that hampers thevisibility of central government responsibilities.

system of regional financing was reformed and regionalgovernments were endowed with further revenue powers.An interesting path in future research would be to explorewhether this change has resulted in an improvement inresponsibility attribution over regional policy areas inmixed-track regions.

5. Summary and concluding remarks

The fragmentation of powers in decentralized systemschallenges the stakes of democratic control. When powersare fragmented across different levels of government,responsibility attribution for policy outcomes turns out tobe a more daunting task for voters than in a context wherecompetences belong to one level of government. If, addi-tionally, the vertical distribution of powers changes overtime, then clarity of responsibility is clearly underminedand, to the extent that accurate responsibility judgmentsare necessary for voting decisions, accountability isweakened.

Given the recent worldwide decentralization trend(Hooghe et al., 2008), the following question emerges: arestates leaking accountability on the way to federalism? Isa blurring of responsibility attribution the unavoidable costto pay in multilevel states?

The scant literature that so far has explored verticalclarity of responsibility in multilevel systems concludesthat the fragmentation of power blurs responsibility attri-bution and worsens accountability. However, this mayseem a too blunt conclusion on the challenges thatdecentralization poses on democratic governance. Thedesign of intergovernmental arrangements in decentral-ized systems adopts multiple forms and we still ignore ifthere is a particular design that better serves clarity ofresponsibility in multilevel systems or whether the span oftime during which arrangements are in place assist citizensin their judgments on responsibility attribution.

This paper attempts to provide new empirical and theo-retical insights on the relationship between clarity ofresponsibilityanddecentralization byproviding a theoreticalclaim that relates the particular design and duration ofdecentralization arrangements with individuals’ ability toascribe responsibilities across different levels of government.

My hypothesis is that clarity of responsibility will beenhanced where the distribution of expenditures andrevenue powers across administrations clearly falls underone level of government (layer-cake model), as this designmakes easier for citizens to clarify responsibilities for policyoutcomes. On the contrary, where the distribution ofexpenditure and revenue powers across administrations ismore intertwined and there is no clear level of governmentthat predominates, individuals are less able to draw a neatline around the responsibilities of each level of governmentand clarity of responsibility will be undermined. A secondtheoretical claim is that individuals are capable ofimproving their capacity of ascribing responsibilities thelonger they experience a particular distribution of powers(what I define as a “learning process”).

To test these hypotheses I take advantage of asymmetricand dynamic decentralization in the Spanish State ofAutonomies, which allows testing if variation in the design

Appendix. Regression models.

Regional policyareas

Central policyareas

Andalusia �0.00607 (0.0604) �0.380*** (0.0521)Catalonia 0.0860 (0.0566) -0.245*** (0.0476)Galicia �0.0160 (0.0527) 0.102** (0.0402)Basque Country 0.802*** (0.0597) �0.621*** (0.0635)

Education (c:no studies & primary)Secondary 0.228*** (0.0415) 0.0648* (0.0365)Lower university 0.398*** (0.0516) 0.0503 (0.0456)High univ.& postgrad. 0.402*** (0.0521) 0.134*** (0.0455)Occupation 0.0862** (0.0382) 0.0228 (0.0335)Age 0.0317***

(0.00576)�0.00282(0.00516)

Age^2 �0.000272***(5.99e�05)

4.24e�05(5.31e�05)

Electoral participation 0.00811 (0.0454) 0.0435 (0.0411)

Identity (c:As Spanish as from the region)Only Spanish �0.0694 (0.0840) -0.129* (0.0727)More Spanish than region 0.00321 (0.0584) �0.0687 (0.0470)More region than Spanish 0.0684 (0.0665) �0.147*** (0.0559)Only region 0.176** (0.0741) �0.0574 (0.0680)Ideology �0.0366***

(0.00833)0.0154** (0.00703)

Ideological distance �0.00443(0.00781)

0.0117* (0.00675)

Regional economy c: Neither good nor badVery Good �0.121 (0.100) �0.111 (0.118)Good �0.122 (0.101) �0.126 (0.118)Bad �0.179* (0.106) �0.101 (0.121)Very bad �0.120 (0.123) �0.117 (0.132)Constant 0.823*** (0.180) 2.460*** (0.176)Observations 4532 4574R-squared 0.127 0.073

Robust standard errors in parentheses ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

S. León / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 120–130 129

and duration of decentralization accounts for variation inindividuals’ capacity to ascribe responsibilities correctly.Empirical evidence supports the argument that clarity ofresponsibility is contingent upon institutional design. Onthe one hand, clarity of responsibility is highest wheredecentralization design follows more closely a “layer-cake”model, that is, where control over expenditures and taxes isgreatly concentrated at one level of government. On theother hand, results show that the end of asymmetries indecentralization design between mixed and slow-trackregions has resulted in partial convergence in responsibilityattribution across Autonomous Communities.

A detailed analysis of the results reveal that whereclarity of responsibility is highest responsibility attributionand the “learning process” is biased: when citizens havelong experienced a high decentralized setting, as it is thecase in the Basque Country, they tend to overstate regionalpowers against central government competences. Thisexplains why individuals in this region perform best inresponsibility attribution in regional policy areas and worstin central government competences, as in the latter casethey keep identifying the regional government as the mostresponsible for policy areas that have always remained atcentral government’s hands.

Biases in responsibility attribution mean that visibilityof different levels of government is unbalanced, which mayhave important implications in the way governments aresubject to citizens’ evaluation. The “regionalist bias”implies lower visibility for central government activities,which undermines central incumbents’ accountability forthe activities she carries out in a jurisdiction.

The opposite case occurs when regional governments arenot held fully responsible for the policy areas they haveauthority upon because the distribution of powers acrosscentral and regional governments is intertwined. This seemsto be the case for mixed-track regions, where decentraliza-tion design has been characterized by an imbalance betweenhigh regional expenditure powers and more limitedautonomy over revenues. In this context, there is no level ofgovernment that clearly predominates over the other, ascentral government is the principal level of government incollecting revenues and regional governments are the onesin providing public services. Data for 2007 indicate thatregional governments’ visibility lags behind that of thecentral government, as citizens perform worse whenascribing responsibility over regional competences thanover competences from the central government. In thisscenario regional governments may face fewer incentives tobehave in a responsive way because they will less capable offully reaping neither the electoral benefits nor the electoralcosts associated to policy outcomes.

To conclude, further research is needed that explores therelationship between decentralization and clarity ofresponsibility and analyzes the extent of the accountabilitygap that decentralization involves. So far the literature hasconcluded that decentralization weakens the conditions tohold governments accountable. However, this paper showsthat the particular design of decentralization may haveimportant implications on the visibility of national andsubnational incumbents and, therefore, on the incentivesthey face to be responsive. A potential future research path is

to test the hypotheses in a broader sample of SpanishAutonomous Communities; in other countries with asym-metric designs of decentralization, such as Italy or theUnited Kingdom and in countries that have experiencedchanges over time as a result of ongoing decentralizationduring the last decades (for instance, Belgium). Finally, tofully capture the implications of decentralization and clarityof responsibility on accountability would require exploring ifvariation in clarity of responsibility across regions withdifferent decentralization design has an impact in the role ofnational and subnational economic voting.

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