The Political Economy of Blame: How Economic Perceptions Shape Voting Intentions in Pakistan's Inflation Crisis

Abstract

This paper looks at the psychology behind personal economic distressing experience, and its relationship to electoral conduct in periods of high inflation, through the example of the current crisis in Pakistan. Beyond traditional retrospective voting models, we argue that the political impacts of economic suffering are not programmed, but they instead are essentially mediated by the causal attribution of blame by citizens. We put the question: how far do attributions of particular blame, perhaps on the incumbent federal government, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global market forces or domestic business cartels, explain how personal financial distress is converted into voting intents? Using a nationally representative survey (N = 542) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to analyse the data, we test the mediation model in which the effect of a multi-item Personal Economic Hardship Index on voting intention (probabilistic incumbent versus opposition support) mediates by a responsibility that is assigned to inflation. Findings demonstrate a disjointed blame field where the insulating or mobilising force of economic hardship is very important and relies on the actor that citizens most blame. The relationship between suffering and anti-incumbent voting is robust and meaningful in the case of blame of the federal government (β =.38, p =.001). This association is entirely mediated and attenuated, however, when primary blame is laid on external actors like IMF (β =.12, p =ns) or world factors, which explains the strong scapegoating effect that shields the incumbent. When it comes to domestic cartels, a direct and positive relationship is found with the support of populist opposition parties (β =.24, p=.01); this is not the case with the incumbent. These results show that the transparency of responsibility is destroyed in politically and economically complicated settings. The process of attribution involved in voting is cognitive and may either impose political accountability or dilute it and thus electoral punishment or insulation. This study is a part of the political economy of blame, which offers quantifiable data of the impact of narrative struggles over the causality on the electoral outcome in the dependent economies seeking solutions to endemic crises, with direct consequences on the political strategy and democratic accountability.

Keywords: Economic Voting, Blame Attribution, Inflation Crisis, Political Accountability, Pakistan Politics.