Жуыртудың жолы және жауапкершіліктен қашу

English language idiom

Buck passing, or passing the buck, or sometimes (playing) the blame game, is the act of attributing to another person or group one's own responsibility. It is often used to refer to a strategy in power politics whereby a state tries to get another state to deter or fight an aggressor state while it remains on the sidelines.

The expression is said to have originated from poker in which a marker or counter (such as a knife with a buckhorn handle during the American Frontier era) was used to indicate the person whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal, the responsibility could be passed by the passing of the "buck," as the counter came to be called, to the next player.

Passing the buck in international relations theory involves the tendency of nation states to refuse to confront a growing threat in the hopes that another state will. According to John Mearsheimer, Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, buck passing is particularly common in multipolar international systems whereas it is rare in bipolar international systems. The failure of European great powers to balance against Bismarck as he unified Germany.

"The buck stops here" is a phrase that was popularized by U. S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. The phrase refers to the notion that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions. Truman received the sign as a gift from a prison warden who was also an avid poker player. It is also the motto of the U. S. Naval Aircraft Carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). President Jimmy Carter arranged to borrow the sign from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Footage from Carter's "Address to the Nation on Energy" shows the sign on the desk during his administration. The reverse of the sign reads, "I'm from Missouri." In 2019, in his first speech as U. K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson vowed to "take personal responsibility for the change" that he would advance, saying "The buck stops here." In 2021, U. S. President Joe Biden said in his statement regarding his affirmation of the Afghanistan withdrawal, "The buck stops with me."