The public attribution of responsibility. Developing an instrument for content analysis

Whether actors failed or succeeded in their political efforts, even who is in charge of finding solutions in the first place, depends on the public attribution of responsibility. The attribution of responsibility is one of the key elements of public discourse. However, social sciences by now failed to provide an instrument for systematic content analysis concerning attribution statements. The article presents an instrument which was developed for the systematic coding of claims on responsibility. Firstly, we give an overview on content analysis methods both, quantitative and qualitative. Secondly, we unfold our concept. We define a statement of responsibility attribution as consisting of three parts: the attribution sender (a), who directs a claim of responsibility at the attribution addressee (b) concerning a specified issue (c). This basic concept is further differentiated. In the final section we report our experiences during the coding phase.