Politicians as Blame-Seekers

Abstract This chapter identifies a distinctive politics of blame-seeking by politicians in advanced democracies. In doing so, it challenges one of the most fundamental assumptions of political science by questioning the ‘blame-is-bad’ thesis. Although this thesis has formed a dominant ‘self-evident truth’ within the discipline for at least thirty years and has stimulated a vast literature on the ‘blame-avoidance behaviour’ of politicians, we suggest that recent events highlight the existence of ‘blame-seeking behaviour’. We propose, contrary to conventional understandings, a new ‘blame-is-good’ thesis which serves to shed light on circumstances in which ‘bad manners’, taking policy positions far from those of median voters, and violating social, political, and constitutional norms might provide a recipe for electoral success by office-seeking politicians. The chapter outlines a political logic of blame-seeking, as well as a distinctive set of blame-seeking strategies for politicians and conditions that are likely to both increase the prevalence of blame-seeking behaviour by politicians and improve its probability of electoral success. A focus on blame-seeking, we suggest, expands our understanding of what politicians say and do to achieve their goals in political contexts characterized by democratic disaffection and a populist zeitgeist.