Cutback management: Strategy, blame attribution, and evaluation of government

Cutback management literature examines how governments engage strategies and maintain organizational performance in times of resource decline. While much of this literature has focused on financial outcomes, in this study we incorporate citizen evaluation of government as the outcome of interest. Additionally, we assess how blame attribution for the resource decline influences citizen evaluations. Using an online survey experiment, we bridge the literatures of cutback management, citizen evaluation of government, and blame attribution to explore how citizens evaluate governments by financial decisions and blame for a deficit. Results show that less blame improves citizen evaluations for each cutback strategy.