Center for the Study of Democracy

This paper is about the politics of claiming credit. Effectively taking the credit for some desirable outcome is an essential element of politics. In tightly controlled, closed, polities, both mythic and real, leaders control the mass media in order to present a coherent, consistent, self-serving and state-serving narrative that ascribes responsibility and blame. This paper explores the disparities in success at claiming credit, with the intent of explaining why some challengers end up deriving credit both in the short and long term for their efforts, while others do not. I begin by looking at the question of the outcomes of social movements, briefly reviewing the relevant literature, which focuses predominantly on public policy. I move to the literature on public policy, examining the difficulties in assessing success or failure of policies. I then identify a number of variables, including goals, political positioning, coalition politics, and constituencies, that explain why some movements have a harder time claiming credit than others. I conclude by suggesting that the positioning of institutional actors, and the degree of their identification with a social movement, is critical to the movement's capacity to claim success.