Credit Claiming by Labeling

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231169016
• Author: Virginia Oliveros,Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro,Matthew S. Winters
• Date: 01 November 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2023, Vol. 56(13) 2099–2127

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00104140231169016

journals.sagepub.com/home/cps

Credit Claiming by

Labeling

Virginia Oliveros

1

, Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro

2

, and

Matthew S. Winters

3



Abstract

We examine a phenomenon we call “credit claiming by labeling”in which a

sitting politician places her name on a project, program, or policy with the goal

of claimingcredit for it. While the prevalenceof this practice suggests thatmany

politicians believe that credit claiming by labeling will aid their careers, there is

little existing evidence on this question. We examine the effects of credit

claiming by labeling with a survey experiment in Argentina.We f‌ind that it has a

negative, though small, effect on respondents’attitudes. Descriptive data

suggests that these results stem from the perceived pervasiveness of the

practice. We thenuse evidence from an additional treatment on the (un)biased

selection of program benef‌iciaries to show that respondents actually reward

politicians who neither label nor manipulate programs. These results suggest

substantial obstacles to overturning citizens’negative baseline beliefs about the

politicized implementation of government programs.

Keywords

credit claiming, voter attitudes, social policy, clientelism, survey experiment,

Argentina

1

Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

2

Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

3

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Virginia Oliveros, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, Norman Mayer Building, Room

311, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA.

Email: volivero@tulane.edu

In countries around the world, incumbent politicians label policies, programs,

and projects with their names. In 2001 in Argentina, for example, the governor

of the province of Buenos Aires distributed 800,000 pairs of children’s

sneakers with his name printed on the tongue.

1

In India, local elected off‌icials

place their names on local public goods like water towers (Auerbach &

Thachil, 2023, Chapter 5). At the start of the global pandemic, boxes of food

distributed to Chilean citizens were accompanied by a letter signed by the

president.

2

In April 2020, for the f‌irst time in U.S. history, a president’s name

appeared on checks issued by the IRS: “President Donald J. Trump”was

printed on the memo line of payments that formed part of the coronavirus

relief package.

3

We consider these examples of a phenomenon we call credit

claiming by labeling, which we def‌ine as a practice in which a sitting politician

incorporates her proper name into the physical manifestations of a policy,

project, or program.

4

Though the ease of f‌inding such examples suggests that credit claiming by

labeling is widespread, there is surprisingly little scholarship that directly

examines how voters respond when politicians literally put their names on

government benef‌its.

5

Presumably, politicians place their names on benef‌its in

the hope of gaining popular support. On the other hand, this practice might

alienate some voters and be politically costly. A recent controversy in Ar-

gentina illustrates both possibilities. In May 2020, a governor was accused of

placing his name on bags of rice distributed through a public program; photos

of the labeled food items circulated widely on social media. Opponents

criticized this apparent attempt at credit claiming, arguing that it was an abuse

of government funds. In response, the governor denied that the photos were

real and suggested the allegations may have been fabricated to damage him.

The photo was later shown to have been fabricated, yet it was inspired by a real

instance of credit claiming by labeling by a mayor—someone who clearly

thought putting his name on the rice was an asset and not a liability.

6

Evidence from related literature also offers some support for the possibility

of positive or negative effects of this type of practice. Existing work on credit

claiming suggests that politicians who cultivate a personal association with

government or non-governmental projects send voters a positive signal about

their performance and/or type (e.g., Cruz & Schneider, 2017;Grimmer et al.,

2012;Guiteras & Mobarak, 2015).

7

On the other hand, we know from the

literature on clientelism that perceived policy manipulation can reduce a

politician’s support, especially among voters who do not receive the benef‌its

themselves (Botero et al., 2021;Mares & Young, 2019;Weitz-Shapiro, 2014).

If credit claiming by labeling signals a willingness to manipulate public

policy, the practice may send a negative signal to voters about a politician’s

performance and/or type.

In this paper, we use a survey experiment to test whether credit claiming by

labeling affects citizens’perceptions of labeled programs, their beliefs about

2100 Comparative Political Studies 56(13)