The Effects of Policy Success Versus Failure Narratives

ABSTRACT

While public policies usually have mixed effects, succeeding at some aspects and failing at others, this nuance is often lost in public discourse when political actors like advocacy groups and politicians strategically emphasize either the successes or failures of particular policies. For example, advocacy groups often emphasize the failures of existing policy with the goal of galvanizing public attention and concern. However, little empirical evidence exists assessing the actual causal impact of these different approaches on public attitudes. This paper presents the results of a pre‐registered experiment in which participants watch a TikTok‐style short news video about either the success or failure of one of three different public policies and then are asked about their trust in government to handle the issue, their perceptions of the issue's importance, and their feelings of collective efficacy. While success and failure narratives are both effective at raising an issue's salience, focusing on a policy's failure has the downstream effect of increasing cynicism about the government's ability to address the issue.