In this fascinating and excellent book, Hood puts significant concepts—blame and blaming—at the center of our thinking by looking at blame culture and blame games. He emphasizes the functionality of blame in social and institutional life, and the need for managing the frontiers of blame avoidance.
— Geert Bouckaert, president, European Group for Public Administration

The Blame Game identifies an interesting and important issue in contemporary public administration, and in contemporary society more broadly. Hood explores the underlying dimensions and implications of blame avoidance, offers rich analysis, and illustrates his points with wonderful examples.
— B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh

Christopher Hood's book describes, dissects, and explains the blame avoidance game in modern politics. He succeeds brilliantly, writing gracefully and acutely about an area that many have noted, but few have illuminated as clearly. This is accessible scholarship for a wide range of subjects and readers.
— Ted Marmor, professor emeritus of politics and public policy, Yale University

This engaging and timely book will draw the significant attention of scholars working in politics, policy, and administration. Masterfully written, The Blame Game represents a new scholarly high point by one of the most fruitful and influential political scientists in the field today.
— David Levi-Faur, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"Christopher Hood takes a simple proposition—that politicians and bureaucrats are mainly concerned about blame avoidance—and uses it to construct a new way of thinking about the organization of public services. In the process, he turns conventional wisdom about the aims of bureaucratic reform on its head. If you learn nothing from this clever and erudite book, you have only yourself to blame."—Alasdair Roberts, author of The Logic of Discipline

"In this fascinating and excellent book, Hood puts significant concepts—blame and blaming—at the center of our thinking by looking at blame culture and blame games. He emphasizes the functionality of blame in social and institutional life, and the need for managing the frontiers of blame avoidance."—Geert Bouckaert, president, European Group for Public Administration

"Christopher Hood's book describes, dissects, and explains the blame avoidance game in modern politics. He succeeds brilliantly, writing gracefully and acutely about an area that many have noted, but few have illuminated as clearly. This is accessible scholarship for a wide range of subjects and readers."—Ted Marmor, professor emeritus of politics and public policy, Yale University

"This engaging and timely book will draw the significant attention of scholars working in politics, policy, and administration. Masterfully written, The Blame Game represents a new scholarly high point by one of the most fruitful and influential political scientists in the field today."—David Levi-Faur, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"The Blame Game identifies an interesting and important issue in contemporary public administration, and in contemporary society more broadly. Hood explores the underlying dimensions and implications of blame avoidance, offers rich analysis, and illustrates his points with wonderful examples."—B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh

Christopher Hood takes a simple proposition—that politicians and bureaucrats are mainly concerned about blame avoidance—and uses it to construct a new way of thinking about the organization of public services. In the process, he turns conventional wisdom about the aims of bureaucratic reform on its head. If you learn nothing from this clever and erudite book, you have only yourself to blame.
— Alasdair Roberts, author of "The Logic of Discipline"