How blame-avoidance and credit-claiming attempts affect policy change in times of crisis

Abstract

How do blame-avoidance and credit-claiming attempts affect the way officeholders govern a crisis and, in turn, adjust their policies? By answering this research question, we shed light on the relationship between officeholders’ aim to avoid blame and claim credit, their problem definition, and policy change. We thus argue that crisis governance is not only guided by crisis-related problems but also by politically motivated goals. In this way, we complement types of governing crises by combining them with blame-avoidance literature and by employing current empirical examples to illustrate the link between crisis governance modes and the political strategies of blame avoidance, credit claiming, and blaming. We find that governing during the crisis and not declaring urgency is motivated by governments’ aim to avoid blame and leads to marginal or no policy change at all. Governing the crisis, however, is driven by officeholders’ aim to claim credit and leads to intermediate or even major policy change. Finally, governing by the crisis does not necessarily result in immediate major policy change but may lead to major policy changes or even institutional changes in the long term.