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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.

A comparative study of peace movements of the early 1980s in the US, Germany, & New Zealand focuses on how their impact on foreign policy issues was influenced by interrelationships between domestic & international factors to explore the broader issue of the policy influence of movements. Relevant literature is reviewed, & mechanisms that heighten a social movement's impact on a nation's foreign policy are outlined. It is shown that, while peace movement members helped to win an important national election in New Zealand & lose one in Germany, they were a minor electoral threat in the US. However, the peace movement played an important role in ending the Cold War & preventing sustained aggressive security policies by changing political alliances & promoting policy alternatives. International constraints on the outcomes of peace movements on domestic foreign policy are discussed. These three cases reveal many different ways that protest movements can impact both foreign & domestic policy, including short-term effects & long-term changes in the political culture. J. Lindroth

Although celebrities have become a regular fixture in modern social movements, there is little explicit theory on why, or on how they may affect the movements in which they participate. We begin by discussing the resources celebrities can bring to bear on social protest movements, as well as the risks that celebrity participation entails both for the movement and for the celebrity. We suggest a notion of political standing, which sets limits on the sorts of causes in which celebrities will generally participate. In constructing their legitimacy to speak for a movement, celebrities frequently alter the claims of that movement to more consensual kinds of politics. We examine the entry, action, and influence of celebrities in particular movements by looking at two recent controversies in which celebrities are deeply involved: The ongoing efforts to preserve the woods around Walden Pond, and the recent passage, and subsequent political fallout, of an antigay referendum in Colorado. In the first case, celebrity participation led to a redefining of movement claims into a nonconflictual inclusive politics that skirted important questions. In the second case, the larger claims of gay rights and liberation were eclipsed by the entry of celebrities into the conflict who universalized the opposition to discrimination. We conclude by discussing the systematic biases that movement use of celebrities may create, and the need to consider the impact of celebrities'peculiar relationships to audiences as they affect political movements and public life.

Based on review of articles appearing in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Scientific American, and on State of the Union addresses; 1945-89.

Book reviewed in this article:Peace/Mir: An Anthology of Historic Alternatives to War, edited by Charles Chatfield and Ruzanna Ilukhina.Realizing Peace: An Introduction to Peace Studies, by Thomas Keefe and Ron E. Roberts.Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide (6th edition), edited by Michael T. Klare.