Claims-Making

Abstract

Claims-making refers to the process of performing or articulating claims that bear on someone else's interests. In its simplest form an instance of claims-making includes two actors—a subject (claimant) and an object (addressee)—and a verbal or physical action (demanding, protesting, criticizing, blaming etc.). In the context of social movement studies and contentious politics, claims-making has most often referred to the conscious articulation of political demands in the public sphere, thus leaving aside more private or hidden forms of political claims-making such as voting and lobbyism.