ABSTRACT
When crises occur, governments face accountability pressures. They are held accountable for the causes leading to the critical event, as well as their crisis management and handling of its consequences. The growing literatures on blame management (see Hood et al. 2007, 2011) and crisis management (Boin et al. 2008, 2009) argue that actors may engage in blame games exploiting these accountability pressures, in political games focusing on officeholders and institutions, and in policy games over policy instruments (Boin et al. 2009). For political games, these scholars claim that governmental actors are primarily interested in keeping the status quo, whereas their political opponents act as change advocates (Boin et al. 2009: 101). Yet, it is puzzling that certain crises seem to generate a consensus between government and opposition, whereas others cause severe controversy.
