This paper focuses on how voters in multi-level systems assign credit and blame for positive and negative economic policy outcomes at the provincial and federal levels. Its goal is to probe more closely into the attitudinal foundations of attribution of responsibility in federations, and in particular, differentiating between attitudinal foundations of credit and blame, as well as how credit and blame mechanisms might work differently at the subnational and federal levels of government. It does this by drawing on survey data on voters’ assignment of responsibility, as well as data on attitudes. To answer these questions, I turn to the case of Canada, using individual level data from survey research on eight provincial elections held between 2011 and 2013. Using Canada as a case provides an opportunity to investigate those questions in a multi-level context where the constitutional allocation of power creates a high potential for accountability.
