Is there a word analogous to 'shooting yourself in the foot'?

Specifically I'm wondering if there's a word that describes the phenomenon where some party takes some action to remedy a situation and the result of that action makes the original situation worse.

Recent examples that made me think about this:

• The NFL suspended a journalist for editorializing a podcast in a way against the party line - the suspension brought the podcast into much more popular light and greatly increased public sympathy for the journalist.

• On Sunday, the protests in Hong Kong were apparently quite civilized, but the police crackdown/pepper spray movement dramatically increased public support for the protestors and the protests have only swelled in size & support (to my understanding).

I'm wondering if there is a very succinct word for this phenomenon that has so far eluded me. I'm not even sure shooting yourself in the foot is a good saying to describe it.

Solution 1:

The term backfire means

(Of a plan or action) rebound adversely on the originator; have the opposite effect to what was intended: overzealous publicity backfired on her

[Oxford Dictionary Online]

Similarly boomerang

(Of a plan or action) return to the originator, often with negative consequences: misleading consumers about quality will eventually boomerang on a carmaker

[Oxford Dictionary Online]

And blowback

(chiefly US) The unintended adverse results of a political action or situation: this is the blowback from all those aggressive public health campaigns

[Oxford Dictionary Online]

Solution 2:

I'm wondering if there's a word that describes the phenomenon where some party takes some action to remedy a situation and the result of that action makes the original situation worse.

First, "shooting oneself in the foot" doesn't necessarily imply that you were trying to remedy a bad situation, only that your actions have caused yourself misfortune in some way.

However, the examples you cite both sound more like the Streisand effect, in which attempting to suppress or censor something ironically results in an increase in its general popularity.

If you were looking for a more general word, there are a lots of words which indicate different degrees of this sort of mistake or error, like gaffe, fumble, and backfire. Gaffe and fumble especially imply that you've caused yourself misfortune in some way, though they tend to apply to verbal actions, as in,

The politician committed this election cycle's biggest gaffe when he gave reporters a piece of his mind, without realizing their cameras were rolling.

Backfire implies that you've caused yourself misfortune in a more general way, as in,

The plan to donate the company's excess revenue to charity backfired when it was revealed that the charity in question was the CEO's foundation.