Local social service and community development organizations are playing an increasingly important role in mobilizing clients to participate in elections. Yet it is not clear why organizations choose to engage in these activities, given that they are outside the scope of their mission and...

The growing literature on public service networks has identified a variety of mechanisms to foster coordination, including trust and norms reciprocity. This paper argues that network actors are also driven by a desire to avoid blame. In doing so, the paper develops the concept of blame avoidance...