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Argumentation in Political Deliberation
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Volume 76
Argumentation in Political Deliberation
Edited by Marcin Lewiński and Dima Mohammed
These materials were previously published in Journal of Argumentation in
Context 2:1 (2013).
Argumentation in
Political Deliberation
Edited by
Marcin Lewiński
Dima Mohammed
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Table of contents
Introduction
Argumentation in political deliberation 1
Marcin Lewiński and Dima Mohammed
Articles
Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse in political
deliberation 11
Frans H. van Eemeren
Strategic maneuvering in European Parliamentary Debate 33
Bart Garssen
Pursuing multiple goals in European Parliamentary Debates:
EU immigration policies as a case in point 47
Dima Mohammed
The place of counter discourse in two methods of public deliberation:
The conférence de citoyens and the débat public on nanotechnologies
in France 75
Marianne Doury and Assimakis Tseronis
Deliberation digitized: Designing disagreement space through
communication-information services 101
Mark Aakhus
(How) do participants in online discussion forums create ‘echo
chambers’? The inclusion and exclusion of dissenting voices
in an online forum about climate change 127
Arthur Edwards
Debating multiple positions in multi-party online deliberation:
Sides, positions, and cases 151
Marcin Lewiński
Subject index 177

Introduction
Argumentation in political deliberation
Marcin Lewiński and Dima Mohammed

ArgLab, Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA-FCSH) /
1. Argumentation theory and political deliberation
As famously declared by Aristotle, both the dialectical and rhetorical study of ar-
gumentation “belong to no separately defined science” (Rhetoric: 1354a), since
“neither of them is identifiable with knowledge of the contents of any specific
subject, but they are distinct abilities of supplying arguments” (Rhetoric: 1356a).
Indeed, one can argue in various contexts about all sorts of matters, from cooking
to philosophy and from medicine to politics. Therefore, the function of the rhe-
torical study of argumentation is “to see [theōrēsai] available means of persuasion”
(Rhetoric: 1355b) in all such contexts, rather than to investigate one particular
subject, as is characteristic of other arts and sciences such as politics, medicine, or
law. All the same, rhetoric is primarily an art of public argumentation. Hence, it
most properly, if not exclusively (see Garver 1994: Ch. 2), applies to the three typi-
cal contexts of public speaking: deliberative, judicial, and epideictic. Thus, besides
being a counterpart of a dialectical method (Rhetoric: 1354a), rhetoric is closely
associated with ethics and politics and requires some insight into virtues and basic
political issues such as “finances, war and peace, national defense, imports and
exports, and the framing of laws” (Rhetoric: 1359b). While a “full examination” of
them should be left “to political science” (Rhetoric: 1359b), “the result is that rheto-
ric is like some offshoot of dialectic and ethical studies (which is rightly called
politics)” (Rhetoric: 1356a). In sum, Aristotle’s message is this — the dialectical
and rhetorical study of argumentation concern the methods of reasoning and per-
suasion about all kinds of subjects in all kinds of circumstances (other than those
with established certainty and knowledge where logic applies). Still, while in prin-
ciple context-independent, argument analysis is particularly pertinent to forms
of argumentation in public contexts. Political deliberation is the first among such
contexts to investigate: “although the method of deliberative and judicial speaking
doi 10.1075/bct.76.00int
2015 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
2 Marcin Lewiński and Dima Mohammed
is the same […] deliberative subjects are finer and more important to the state
than private transactions [in courts — ML&DM]” (Rhetoric: 1354b).
The link between argumentation studies and collective deliberation in a po-
litical context was thus established in antiquity and calls for a continuous inquiry.
Deliberation, in both a more traditional, strict understanding and in a recently
advocated looser sense, has been consistently seen as a prime venue for public rea-
soning and argument. In a strict sense, collective deliberation is typically defined
as a public argumentative discussion, usually taking place in formalized settings
such as parliaments and councils, over the most prudent or expedient courses
of action that a given group should take. Contemporary scholars, following the
lead of Habermas (1989, 1996), characteristically add a normative dimension to
deliberation — it should in fact rely upon publicly accountable forms of reason-
able argumentation taking place under conditions of equality and inclusiveness.
So conceived, deliberation is a central element of a normatively preferred demo-
cratic system. Some scholars extend this strict notion of deliberation and embrace
various forms of “everyday [political] talk” as belonging to “the deliberative sys-
tem” (e.g., Mansbridge 1999). In this loose sense, deliberation takes place when-
ever citizens discuss publicly relevant issues in a back and forth of argumentative
exchanges aimed at forming and critically testing political opinions, rather than
directly deciding on a course of action. Such informal public deliberations in fact
constitute a vibrant public sphere indispensable in a healthy democratic polity.
Acknowledging the centrality of both formal and informal deliberative practices
in a democracy, political theorists even speak of “the deliberative turn” in demo-
cratic theory and stress that “argument always has to be central to deliberative
democracy” (Dryzek 2000: 71). Similarly, the proponents of “the argumentative
turn” in policy studies maintain that “it is argumentation that constitutes the pri-
mary consideration in the world of policy making” (Fischer and Gottweis 2012:
14). Yet, the study of the pivotal argumentative aspect of deliberation is still un-
derdeveloped.
The goal of this volume is to further the examination of the role, shape, and
quality of argumentation in political deliberation from the perspective of argu-
mentation theory. Well-articulated theories of argumentation, such as pragma-di-
alectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004; van Eemeren 2010) or Walton’s New
Dialectic (1998), are in a good position to significantly contribute to the study of
public deliberation by revealing the inner workings of argumentative interactions
that constitute deliberative discourse. The basic theoretical assumption underlying
investigations in the chapters comprising this volume is most fully elaborated in
the current pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation (van Eemeren 2010; van
Eemeren, Houtlosser, Ihnen, and Lewiński 2010): in order to properly understand
and evaluate ordinary argumentation, one has to undertake a detailed study of
varied contexts for argumentation, including political deliberation. Therefore, it is

in the contextual analysis of more or less institutionalized practices of argumenta-
tion where the focal theoretical and empirical interests of argumentation studies
converge. (As mentioned below, a similar ‘contextual assumption’ is gaining prom-
inence in the political analysis of deliberative practices within the deliberative the-
ory of democracy.) Accordingly, the chapters in this volume investigate a variety
of theoretical and empirical questions: How can we best theorize, analyze, and
evaluate argumentation in the context of political deliberation? What is the impact
of the contextual conditions in different deliberative activities on the shape and
quality of public argument? What are the typical forms of deliberative argument
and counterargument? To what extent is the “virtual public sphere” transforming
the way we engage in public argument? Does it allow for inclusive participation
and genuine argumentative debate between advocates of various political views?
By addressing these questions, the volume hopes to provide a focused account of
the multifaceted argumentative practices across the various deliberative arenas.
Before introducing the contributions to this volume, we would like to engage
in a brief discussion regarding the interplay between argumentation theory and po-
litical theory (or perhaps between argumentation theory and any other theory that
examines subjects which constitute contexts for argumentation, such as legal the-
ory, health communication, business communication, philosophy of science, etc.).
As mentioned above, this was a major concern in the classical work of Aristotle. His
solution follows a well-known distinction between koina and idia, often interpret-
ed, respectively, as forms of argument common to all disciplines and as material
premises belonging to a specific field of inquiry. Ideally, the study of argumentation
in context requires a mutual insight into both the methods and contents of argu-
ment. This, by extension, calls for a scholar to be an expert in both the (logical, dia-
lectical, rhetorical) methods of argumentation and in the respective subject theory
(such as political theory, law, or medicine). As is clear in Aristotle’s work, this re-
quirement is rather hard to achieve, but the analysis of political deliberation comes
closest to the satisfactory equilibrium due to the intricate interrelations between
public argument and public policies. Today, one can distinguish at least three levels
of examination of political deliberation within argumentation studies:
1. At a minimum, argumentation scholars illustrate their largely theoretical in-
vestigations into forms of argumentation with examples drawn from political
discourse, often with an implicit assumption that it is here where one finds the
most relevant or representative instantiations of argumentative phenomena
such as fallacies (e.g., Aikin and Casey 2011). In a different vein, rhetorical
case studies (e.g., Zarefsky 2014) move towards an Aristotelian practice of ex-
amining the details of political argumentation which is treated as the chief
element of civic engagement. However, despite crucial insights, no system-

atic attempts at a theoretical integration between argumentation and political
theory are made.
2. A closer integration can take a largely top-down or bottom-up direction.
Some advanced theories of argumentation start by providing a theoretical
background for a systematic study of argumentative contexts, including po-
litical deliberation. Rather than being used chiefly for illustrative purposes,
deliberative discourse becomes an object of consistent inquiry into the condi-
tions it creates for argumentative exchanges. As a result, models of argumenta-
tion in deliberative context are proposed, whether principally on descriptive
(van Eemeren 2010: Ch. 5) or normative (Walton 1998: Ch. 6; McBurney,
Hitchcock, and Parsons 2007) grounds. By contrast, empirically-oriented re-
searchers originating in discourse analysis (Tracy 2010) or rhetorical studies
(Asen 2010), use (qualitative) methods of argument analysis and evaluation to
systematically investigate the intricacies of actual deliberations. Their results
allow them to engage in a broader debate over the role of public argumenta-
tion in democratic policy making. Contributions to this volume largely fall
under these two categories. They employ concepts and methods developed
within argumentation theory to analyze, evaluate, and theorize deliberative
activities in a way that can not only directly further argumentation studies
but also importantly complement both theoretical and empirical accounts of
deliberation offered by political philosophers and political scientists.
3. However, one may hope that such studies, while significant in themselves, also
pave the way for a fuller integration between argumentation theory and a given
subject theory, in this case political theory. As with Aristotle, the students of
argumentation in the political context seem to face a feasible task — as proven
in the recent work of Fairclough and Fairclough (2012, 2013) who inquire into
“the nature of the political” by analyzing practical argumentation in various
forms of political discourse. Similarly, theorists of deliberative democracy and
policy analysts who put argument at the very center of their conceptual appa-
ratus begin employing tools of argumentation theory (e.g. Rehg 2005) — but
a broader integration is still pending.
One obvious avenue for scrutinizing commonalities between argumentation and
political studies is conceptual work dealing with fundamental notions such as
the rationality of political argument and political action, especially in the con-
text of the deliberative theory of democracy. Early moves taken in this direction
by Habermas (1984: Ch.1) and Wenzel (1979) require a revisited inquiry that
would incorporate recent developments in both fields (see Rehg 2005). However,
such conceptual work can hugely benefit from a close examination of particular
contexts for political deliberation. Not surprisingly, it is in the contextual study of

practices that are both argumentative and political where argumentation and po-
litical research can converge, mutually benefitting both fields. Argumentation the-
ory seems to be undergoing a “contextual turn” which channels scholarly interest
into examination of argumentation as it happens in a wide array of everyday con-
texts. Such contextual studies, of course, build upon previous theoretical efforts to
define argumentative rationality and construct ideal models that would embody
it. Actual argumentative contexts can be grasped through a method of comparing
and contrasting them with the ideal models. Quite interestingly, a similar develop-
ment has been taking place in the theory of deliberative democracy. A number of
scholars (e.g., Bächtiger et al. 2010; Chambers 2009; Dryzek and Hendriks 2012)
have recently contributed to, or observed, the shift of focus from the stipulation of
the normative conditions of possibility for reasoned and legitimate deliberation to
the analysis of actual conditions of performance in different deliberative settings.
Hence argumentation research and political research in the tradition of the delib-
erative theory of democracy converge in their step from ideal theoretical models
towards a systematic study of concrete contexts of argumentation.
The chapters collected in this volume employ concepts and methodologies
developed within argumentation theory to investigate the specifics of particular
deliberative venues, whether formal or informal. By doing so, we hope, they con-
tribute to obtaining a more comprehensive insight into what argumentative ex-
changes in deliberative contexts actually are. This should be of interest to students
of deliberation and argumentation alike. In addition, they problematize and theo-
rize some vital issues related to the study of situated argumentation, thus contrib-
uting to the study of argumentation in context at large.
2. Overview of the volume
Following the more inclusive notion of deliberation mentioned above, the vol-
ume is divided into two basic parts dealing either with largely formal or informal
deliberative contexts. Each part opens with a more theoretical contribution, pro-
viding a conceptual background for analyzing and evaluating argumentation in
deliberative contexts (van Eemeren, Aakhus). Formally institutionalized delibera-
tion is often associated with parliamentary discussions, and such is the case here
where argumentation in the European Parliament is taken into scrutiny (Garssen,
Mohammed). Besides, some newer forms of public deliberation — consensus
conferences and public hearings — are analyzed (Doury and Tseronis). The study
of informal deliberations focuses on discussions in the virtual public sphere —
whether in Internet groups (Edwards) or online newspapers (Lewiński).
Frans van Eemeren, in “Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse in

political deliberation,” lays theoretical foundations for the study of argumentation
in political deliberation from the perspective of the pragma-dialectical theory de-
veloped at the University of Amsterdam over the last 30 years. Pragma-dialectics
is arguably the only argumentation theory today with a comprehensive and con-
sistent research program. Van Eemeren expounds the theory in its latest version,
where dialectical and rhetorical concerns are integrated in the notion of strategic
maneuvering. He proposes to treat contexts for argumentation as communicative
activity types belonging to the larger genres of communicative activity. Public de-
liberation is analyzed as one of such crucial genres. It creates particular conditions
for strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse that can be systematically
characterized using the ideal model of a critical discussion as a conceptual tem-
plate. Van Eemeren illustrates his points with examples of ongoing pragma-dialec-
tical research on argumentation in political deliberation.
In “Strategic maneuvering in European Parliamentary debate” Bart Garssen
applies the framework developed by van Eemeren to analyze legislative debates
in the European Parliament (EP). Garssen builds on previous work in which this
particular type of debate is characterized as a distinct argumentative activity type
in which the possibilities for strategic maneuvering are predetermined. Through
the analyses of a series of examples, he shows that the preconditions for strategic
maneuvering in this type of debate are not only to be found in institutional regu-
lations and conventions, but also in the fact that the discussions take place in a
complex context in which many parties with many different political interests act.
Dima Mohammed, in “Pursuing multiple goals in European Parliamentary
debates: EU immigration policies as a case in point,” also examines the complex
context of EP debates and how it shapes argumentative exchanges. Mohammed
focuses on the multi-purposive nature of these debates. On the basis of an argu-
mentative analysis of a debate on immigration, she identifies different institutional
goals that are pursued by Members of the EP and characterizes the ways in which
these goals shape the argumentative exchanges. The goals she identifies relate to
the occasion of the debate, to the powers of the EP, as well as to the different identi-
ties Members of the EP assume in the Parliament. Mohammed suggests that while
the occasion-related and powers-related goals give rise to multiple discussions that
are developed simultaneously, the identity-related goals guide the MEPs’ choices
and formulations in these discussions.
In “The place of counter discourse in two methods of public deliberation:
The conférence de citoyens and the débat public on nanotechnologies in France,”
Marianne Doury and Assimakis Tseronis study the way arguers manage the insti-
tutional constraints in two methods of public deliberation: consensus conference
and public hearing. Their analysis of two concrete deliberation processes, where
the development of nanotechnology in France is discussed, focuses on the pro-

duction of counter-discourse. Interestingly, the argumentative analysis of the dis-
course produced in each of these events shows that despite significant differences
in the available opportunities to express counter-discourse within the two distinct
methods of public deliberation, in each case the participants found ways to express
such counter-discourse. In view of their findings, Doury and Tseronis emphasize
that the literature in the political and social sciences can help argumentation theo-
rists gain a more refined understanding of the deliberative reality.
Mark Aakhus opens the investigation of argumentation in the context of
computer-mediated deliberation with “Deliberation digitized: Designing dis-
agreement space through communication-information services.” Aakhus’s largely
theoretical contribution extends the conversational approach to argumentation
developed by Jacobs and Jackson and makes a case for treating Information and
Communication Technologies that facilitate deliberation these days as specific de-
signs for managing disagreement through argumentative interactions. They are
thus much more than mere settings, or conduits, for otherwise ordinary delibera-
tions. Rather, Aakhus argues, various designs for deliberation shape the content,
direction, and outcomes of argumentation and the practical activity from which
argumentation arises. Importantly, technological designs can be analyzed and
evaluated as taking different levels of responsibility for the unfolding deliberative
interactions, a claim Aakhus illustrates with examples stretching on a continuum
from simple online chats and threaded discussions to complex Web and Social
Media strategies that circulate data and arguments for others to use.
Arthur Edwards, in “(How) do participants in online discussion forums cre-
ate ‘echo chambers’? The inclusion and exclusion of dissenting voices in an online
forum about climate change,” takes into scrutiny discussions on Climategate.nl
(a skeptical Dutch online forum on climate change) to critically assess Sunstein’s
claim that political online forums tend to be characterized by in-group homoge-
neity and easily slide towards group polarization. Edwards argues that political
online forums can be treated as argumentative communities, with their own es-
tablished rules and practices. Further, he observes that the argumentative commu-
nity of Climategate.nl, through the discursive processes of inclusion and exclusion,
gradually moved in the direction of an ‘echo chamber’ but was never completely
homogeneous. Edwards concludes by suggesting ‘a counter-steering moderation
policy’ as a remedy to deliberation limited to a homogenous in-group.
Finally, in “Debating multiple positions in multi-party online deliberation:
Sides, positions, and cases,” Marcin Lewiński takes readers’ discussions on Osama
bin Laden’s killing in online editions of two British newspapers, The Guardian and
The Telegraph, as a starting point to examine the complexities of multi-party de-
liberations in which many competing positions are debated. Lewiński argues that
such deliberations are challenging to argument analysis that typically approaches

argumentative discussions in terms of dyadic encounters, for instance between a
proponent and an opponent, or a speaker and an audience. He proposes a distinc-
tion between sides, positions, and cases as a useful addition to argument analysis in
the context of multi-party deliberation.
Acknowledgements
Chapters comprising this volume originated in talks presented at the International Colloquium
“Argumentation in Political Deliberation” organized by the Argumentation Lab, Nova Institute
of Philosophy (IFILNOVA), FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2 September 2011. The col-
loquium and the volume are part of a project “Argumentation, Communication, and Context”
sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT: PTDC/FIL–
FIL/10117/2009) and carried out at the ArgLab. We thank the Foundation, João Sàágua, the
project’s primary investigator, António Marques, director of the Nova Institute of Philosophy,
and our colleagues at ArgLab (Fabrizio Macagno, Giovanni Damele, and Michael Baumtrog).
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Strategic maneuvering in argumentative
discourse in political deliberation
Frans H. van Eemeren

ILIAS, Emeritus Professor University of Amsterdam
In this essay, first the pragma-dialectical theory of strategic maneuvering is

explained. Then the focus is on the conventionalization of communicative
practices in communicative activity types and the institutional constraints it
imposes on strategic maneuvering. Thus, an adequate background is created for
discussing, on the basis of several recent projects, pragma-dialectical research of
argumentative discourse in the political domain.
Keywords: argumentative characterization, communicative activity type,

confrontational strategic maneuver(ing), (political) deliberation, institutional
point, institutional precondition, (extended) pragma-dialectics, strategic
maneuvering
1. Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse
Starting from the model of a critical discussion, pragma-dialectical theorizing

has moved gradually, and in various phases, from the analytic level of abstract
idealization to the concrete level of the manifold practices of argumentative dis-
course. This development started by demonstrating, based on the treatment of
the fallacies, the problem-validity of the theoretical framework constituted by the
rules for critical discussion. At the end of the 20th century I set about, together
with Peter Houtlosser, to take another important step towards strengthening
the connection of the pragma-dialectical approach with argumentative reality
by including an account of the ‘strategic design’ of argumentative discourse in
the theorizing (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002). The aim of this inclusion
was to extend the available analytic and evaluative tools in such a way that a
more refined and profound analysis, a more precise and realistic evaluation of
argumentative discourse, and a more thorough justification of the analysis and
the evaluation could be given than the pragma-dialectical ‘standard’ theory
doi 10.1075/bct.76.01eem
12 Frans H. van Eemeren
developed up to then allowed for.1 In Strategic maneuvering in argumentative dis-

course (van Eemeren 2010) I have expounded the ‘extended’ pragma-dialectical
theory resulting from this endeavor.
In order to provide an account of the strategic design of argumentative dis-
course, next to the dimension of reasonableness predominant in the standard
theory, the dimension of effectiveness needs to be incorporated in the theorizing.
Houtlosser and I took as our starting point that in real-life argumentative dis-
course aiming for effectiveness and aiming for reasonableness always go together
— or may be considered to go together. In practice, in all argumentative moves that
are made in the discourse, the arguers’ objectives of being effective and maintain-
ing reasonableness are always pursued simultaneously. In making argumentative
moves the arguer is out to achieve the effect of acceptance in the audience he wants
to reach, but in order to achieve this effect based on the merits of the argumenta-
tive move he has made he needs to remain at the same time within the boundaries
of reasonableness, which are in the pragma-dialectical theory defined by the rules
for critical discussion. Inevitably there is a certain tension inherent in concur-
rently pursuing these two objectives, so that a delicate balance must be kept. This
is why, in our view, making argumentative moves always and continually involves
strategic maneuvering to reconcile aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable.
Adopting the theoretical notion of ‘strategic maneuvering’ means includ-
ing aiming for effectiveness and leads to the addition of a rhetorical dimension
to the dialectical framework of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation.
Integrating rhetorical insight in the dialectical theorizing does not mean, however,
that the pragma-dialectical approach has suddenly become completely rhetorical,
let alone that it has absorbed the whole of rhetoric. Starting from the core part of
rhetoric pertaining to aiming for effectiveness in argumentative discourse,2 only
those rhetorical components that can be enlightening in dealiing with strategic
maneuvering are brought to bear in pragma-dialectics. In bringing together dia-
lectical insights concerning the reasonableness of argumentative discourse and
rhetorical insights concerning its effectiveness, the study of strategic maneuvering
in pragma-dialectics entered a trickier area than one might have expected based
on the historical origins of dialectic and rhetoric.3 Although Aristotle, for one,
1. In addition, including an account of the strategic design in the theorizing is also thought to be
useful for developing more sophisticated methods for the improvement of the oral and written
production of argumentative discourse.
2. Although there is certainly much more to rhetoric, most scholars consider the study of aim-
ing for effectiveness in discourse to be its core business. See, e.g., Wenzel (1990), Hample (2003,
2007), and van Eemeren (2010: 66–80).
3. See Wagemans (2009).

Strategic maneuvering 13
took a profound interest in both perspectives on argumentative discourse, con-

sidering dialectic and rhetoric as each other’s ‘counterparts’ (antistrophos), after
almost continual changes of emphasis in the relationship,4 the division of labor
came to an end when dialectic and rhetoric separated completely in the early 17th
century and came to be seen as two incompatible paradigms.5
This division is reflected in the mutual isolation of the dialectical and the rhe-
torical perspectives on argumentation. Dialectic, which had been overthrown by
the rise of mathematical logic, made a comeback in the second half of the twen-
tieth century within the fields of in formal dialectic, standard pragma-dialectics
and some informal logical approaches. Rhetoric, which had always remained
prominent in (speech) communication studies in the United States, experienced a
remarkable revival in Europe with the launch of the New Rhetoric. Each of these
camps created its own infrastructure of scholarly societies, books, and book series
and the academic work done in the other camp was generally neglected if not
looked down upon as unsuitable for tackling the problems argumentation theory
has to deal with (“only formulas” in response to the dialectical perspective and “no
systematic theory” in response to the rhetorical perspective).
In order to remedy the complete separation between the dialectical and the
rhetorical approaches to argumentative discourse, the conceptual and communica-
tive gap between the two research communities needs to be bridged (van Eemeren
and Houtlosser 2002). In my view, the two perspectives are not really incompat-
ible and can even be complementary in many ways. From a critical point of view,
rhetorical effectiveness is, in my opinion, only worthwhile within the boundaries
of dialectical reasonableness and setting dialectical standards of reasonableness is
only of any real significance if it is combined with exploring rhetorical tools for
achieving effectiveness. This is why I think that the future of argumentation theory
lies in a constructive integration of the dialectical and the rhetorical perspectives
(van Eemeren 2010: 87–92). The notion of strategic maneuvering is the primary
theoretical tool to bring about such an integration.6
4. Of old the relationship between dialectic and rhetoric has been characterized by a certain
competitiveness, with dialectic prevailing at times and rhetoric at other times. A radical change
took place in medieval times when the tasks of inventio and dispositio were moved from rhetoric
to dialectic, leaving rhetoric only with the presentational tasks of elocutio and actio.
5. According to Toulmin (2001), the division became “ideological” after the 17th century’s
Scientific Revolution. While rhetoric became part of the humanities, dialectic was incorporated
in logic and the sciences.
6. The rapprochement between dialectical and rhetorical approaches to argumentation is

stimulated not just by the efforts of pragma-dialecticians (van Eemeren and Houtlosser Eds.
2002, van Eemeren 2010), but also by communication scholars such as Wenzel (1990) and
Strategic maneuvering manifests itself in every argumentative move through

three different aspects: (1) the selection that is made from the ‘topical potential,’
i.e. the choice from the set of alternatives available at that point in the discourse
that is considered most expedient; (2) the adaptation to ‘audience demand,’ i.e. the
choice of perspective that is considered to agree best with the frame of reference of
the listeners or readers the speaker or writer intends to reach; (3) the exploitation
of ‘presentational devices,’ i.e. the choice of stylistic and other means of expression
considered most appropriate for the purpose. These three aspects correspond with
three important foci of rhetorical preoccupation reflected in research traditions
stemming from antiquity and still identifiable in modern rhetoric: topical systems,
audience orientation, and stylistics.7 The three aspects of strategic maneuvering
always manifest themselves simultaneously and come about in one and the same
oral or written utterance. Since they pertain to different kinds of choices that are
made in strategic maneuvering, it is necessary to consider all three of them sepa-
rately before a satisfactory analysis of the strategic maneuvering taking place in
an argumentative move can be given in which their mutual interaction is taken
into account. This is why it is useful to distinguish the three aspects of strategic
maneuvering analytically. Their mutual interdependency is expressed in Figure 1
by representing the three aspects as the three sides that constitute together the
‘strategic maneuvering triangle’ (van Eemeren 2010: 93–96)
Topical potential
Audience demand Presentational devices
Figure 1. The strategic maneuvering triangle
informal logicians such as Tindale (2004). In addition, the foundation of the International
Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA), the editorial policies of scholarly journals such
as Argumentation, Informal Logic and Argumentation and Advocacy, the publication of compre-
hensive book series and the organization of joint conferences have played a positive role.
7. Representatives of these three traditions in modern argumentation theory are, to name just
a few prominent examples, Rubinelli (2009) for the topical systems, Perelman and Olbrechts-
Tyteca (1969) for audience orientation, and Fahnestock (2009) for stylistics. All three of them
connect the aspect they take as their point of departure methodically with one or more of the
other aspects.
Strategic maneuvering takes place at all stages of the argumentative process of

resolving a difference of opinion on the merits. At every discussion stage the par-
ties are presumed not only to be out to achieve the dialectical objective of the
stage concerned but also, and at the same time, to achieve the optimal rhetorical
result at the stage they are going through. Thus each of the dialectical aims of
the four discussion stages may be taken to have its rhetorical analogue and the
arguers make use of strategic maneuvering to reconcile the simultaneous pursuit
of these two different aims. Figure 2 provides an overview of the dialectical and
rhetorical dimensions of the four discussion stages by specifying the dialectical
and rhetorical aims pursued at each of these stages and the ways in which the si-
multaneous pursuit of these aims manifests itself in the three aspects of strategic
maneuvering.
Dialectical Rhetorical Aspect of Aspect of audi- Aspect of presen-

dimension dimension topical choice ence demand tational choice
Reasonableness Effectiveness Reasonable and Reasonable and Reasonable and

effective topical effective handling effective use of
selection of audience presentational
demand devices
Confrontation Reasonable Effective defini- Reasonable Reasonable Reasonable
stage definition of tion of differ- and effective and effective and effective
difference of ence of opinion choice of issues adjustment of presentational
opinion and critical issues and criti- design of issues
responses cal responses to and critical
audience responses
Opening stage Reasonable Effective Reasonable and Reasonable Reasonable and

establishment establishment effective choice and effective effective presen-
of point of of point of of procedural adjustment of tational design
departure departure and material procedural and of procedural
starting points material starting and material
points to audi- starting points
ence
Argumentation Reasonable Effective devel- Reasonable and Reasonable Reasonable and
stage development of opment of lines effective choice and effective effective presen-
lines of attack of attack and of arguments adjustment of tational design
and defense defense and criticisms arguments and of arguments
criticisms to and criticisms
audience
Concluding stage Reasonable Effective state- Reasonable and Reasonable and Reasonable and
statement of ment of results effective choice effective adjust- effective design
results of conclusion ment of conclu- of presenta-
regarding the sion regarding tion conclusion
results the results to regarding the
audience results
Figure 2. Aspects of strategic maneuvering with two dimensions in 4 discussion stages

A dialectical aim does not only have its rhetorical analogue at the level of the
discussion as a whole and the various discussion stages, but also at the level of the
individual argumentative moves that are made. In each argumentative move the
dialectical aim that is pursued has its rhetorical parallel. In principle, the joint pur-
suit of the dialectical and the rhetorical aim is to manifest itself in every argumen-
tative move in all three aspects of strategic maneuvering. If the suspected strategic
function of an argumentative move manifests itself in only one aspect, say in the
way in which the move is phrased, the move embodies a local ‘tactic’ rather than a
full strategic maneuver, but this is not a rigorous distinction because the strategic
function of an argumentative move often manifests itself most prominently in one
particular aspect.A strategic maneuver may be just local, but if the arguer is, at a
particular discussion stage or in the discussion as a whole, out to achieve a specific
kind of result, the strategic maneuvers carried out in his argumentative moves may
combine into a full argumentative strategy. An argumentative strategy requires co-
ordination both at the “vertical” level of the three aspects of strategic maneuvering
and at the “horizontal” level of the consecutive strategic maneuvers. In pragma-
dialectical terms one can only say that a fully-fledged argumentative strategy has
been carried out if the topical, audience-oriented, and stylistic choices that are
made in each of the argumentative moves can be shown to cohere and when taken
together the moves can be shown to constitute a concerted succession of strategic
maneuvers furthering the same outcome. Next to general ‘discussion strategies’ af-
fecting the discussion as a whole, there may be specific ‘confrontational strategies’
pertaining to the management of the ‘disagreement space,’8 ‘opening strategies’
pertaining to the establishment of the ‘zone of agreement,’ ‘argumentational strate-
gies’ pertaining to the shaping of the lines of attack and defense,9 and ‘concluding
strategies’ pertaining to the determination of the outcome of the discussion.
2. Conventionalization of communicative practices in communicative

activity types
Strategic maneuvering does not take part in an idealized critical discussion but
in the multi-varied communicative practices that have developed in empirical re-
ality. In the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, the more or
less institutionalized conventionalizations of these communicative practices are
8. For the notion of ‘disagreement space’ and the accompanying notion of ‘virtual standpoints’
see van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson and Jacobs (1993: 95–96).
9. In the pragma-dialectical view, the kind of ‘stock issues’ pertinent to the kind of attacks and
defences that can be developed depend, among other things, on the type of standpoint at issue.
therefore duly taken into account (van Eemeren 2010: 129–162).10 This means that
the various ‘communicative activity types’ which have established themselves in
the various macro-contexts of communicative activity are carefully analyzed.11
The conventionalization of a communicative activity type may be highly for-
malized, as is as a rule the case in the legal domain, but an activity type may also
be formalized to a lesser degree, as is usual in the political domain, or it may be
only informally conventionalized, as is customary in the interpersonal domain.
In some cases the conventions regulating the communicative activity will be laid
down explicitly in binding constitutive or regulative rules, in other cases they are
loosely defined in largely implicit regulations of some kind, or they may simply
be enforced upon the participants by established practices and common usage.
Among the usually moderately formalized communicative activity types in the
political domain are, for instance, the plenary debate in the European Parliament
and Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons, but also
election debates on television and political interviews.
Communicative activity types are in the pragma-dialectical conception
conventionalized communicative practices whose conventionalization serves,
through the implementation of the appropriate genres of communicative activity,
the specific communicative needs stemming from the institutional exigencies of
a certain communicative domain. The pragma-dialectical ‘genres’ of communi-
cative activity remain close to Fairclough’s broad characterization of a ‘genre’ of
communicative activity as “a socially ratified way of using language in connection
with a particular type of social activity” (1995: 14). Although certain communica-
tive activity types are prototypically associated with the use of a particular genre
of communicative activity, it should be noted that some communicative activity
types involve — sometimes just as prototypically — the combined activation of
several genres of conventionalized communicative activity.
Rigotti and Rocci’s ‘interaction schemes’ seem to have a similar function as
our ‘genres of communicative activity.’ They are defined as “culturally shaped ‘reci-
pes’ for interaction congruent with more or less broad classes of joint goals and
involving scheme-roles presupposing generic requirements. Deliberation, nego-
tiation, advising, problem-solving, adjudication, mediation, teaching are fairly
10. The term institutionalized is used here in a broad sense, so that it refers not only to estab-
lished organizations of the law, administration and schools, let alone just to those of prisons,
mental clinics and the army, but to all socially and culturally established macro-contexts in
which certain formally or informally conventionalized communicative practices have devel-
oped. Like Searle (1995), I envision institutions as systems for dealing with rights and duties
characterized by socially constructed rules and their associated sanctions.
11. For a related meaning of the term activity type see Levinson (1992: 69).
broad interaction schemes; while more specific interaction schemes may corre-
spond to proper ‘jobs’ ” (Rigotti and Rocci 2006: 173). As is the case with genres
of communicative activity, the same interaction scheme can be found in different
‘interaction fields’ (which are in the pragma-dialectical terminology called com-
municative domains). Confusingly, however, the term interaction scheme appears
to refer in practice both to genres of communicative activity and to individual
communicative activity types.12
The genres of communicative activity that may be implemented in the various
communicative activity types include, among a great many others, adjudication,
deliberation and communion-seeking (which will be used here for the purpose of
illustration). Here I concentrate on communicative activity types making use of
the genre of communicative activity known as deliberation.13 The term delibera-
tion refers to the communicative activity of a multi-varied cluster of emphatically
argumentative communicative activity types dealing with policy issues on which
the views of the participants and those of the members of a real or projected audi-
ence diverge.14 Although the format may in some communicative activity types
making use of the genre of deliberation be more clearly defined than in others,
these communicative activity types are usually not fully conventionalized. In de-
liberative communicative activity types which explicitly take the form of a public
debate, the disputants generally have different institutional missions because they
have different stakes in the matter. More often than not their argumentation will
be aimed at convincing a listening or watching third-party audience of their case
12. According to Greco Morasso (2009, note 169), “The notion of activity type corresponds to
an interaction scheme applied to a precise interaction field.”
13. The implementations of deliberation discussed here constitute a specific sub-section of the
uses of deliberation which concentrate on the conventionalization of communicative activity
types related to the institutionalization of representative democracy. Deliberation is used in the
much broader meaning given to this term by protagonists of ‘deliberative democracy’ such as
Habermas (1994: 8; 1996: 307–308) and a number of political scientists, replacing the traditional
view of political deliberation as an activity conducted only in formal institutions, such as parlia-
ments, by a view in which informal and less regulated communication among citizens are con-
sidered equally important to rational democratic politics. According to Mansbridge, everyday
talk differs from classic deliberation in an assembly “not in kind but only in degree” and should
be assessed according to the same standards (1999: 227–222).
14. Although there can also be political deliberation without a third-party audience, I am in-
clined to think that the presence of a third-party audience is in fact vital for the characterization
of strategic maneuvering taking place in political deliberation. Without such an audience the
conventional constraints on the strategic maneuvering will come close to those of s genre of
communicative activity such as disputation.
rather than the debate partners they address, so that this audience is in fact their
‘primary’ audience.
It is through the use of the appropriate genre (or genres) of communicative
activity that a communicative activity type is to realize its ‘institutional point.’ The
institutional point, which reflects the rationale of a communicative activity type,
is defined by the institutional exigency in response to which the activity type has
come into being.15 To realize its institutional point, each communicative activity
type is conventionalized in accordance with the specific demands it has to fulfill.
As Mohammed (2009) has explained, the institutional point of Prime Minister’s
Question Time in the British House of Commons, for example, is to preserve de-
mocracy by holding the Prime Minister to account for his government’s policies
and to do so in accordance with the demands following from the institutional
conventions of Question Time, including the format of an exchange of questions
and answers determined by parliamentarian practice and existing regulations such
as the House of Commons Rulings from the Chair, the Standing Orders, and the
parliamentary rules of order.
Communicative activity types belonging to the same communicative domain
which make use of the same genre of communicative activity share a general in-
stitutional point. The general institutional point which a great deal of the com-
municative activity types in the political domain have in common, for example, is
preserving the democratic political culture by means of deliberation. On the more
specific level of the individual communicative activity types, particular institu-
tional goals can be distinguished which are instrumental in realizing the specific
institutional point of the communicative activity type concerned.16
The various kinds of communicative activity types that have developed within
each communicative domain manifest themselves in a continual succession of
speech events. In some cases argumentation theorists will be interested exclusively
in the specifics of a particular individual speech event because this text or debate
has a special historical meaning. This was, for instance, the case when Houtlosser
and I analysed William the Silent’s Apologia pamphlet in defense of the Dutch
revolt against the Spanish King, which was published in 1580 (van Eemeren and
Houtlosser 1999, 2000). In other cases, however, they consider individual speech
15. The pragma-dialectical approach connects with ‘rational choice institutionalism as prac-
ticed in New Institutionalism. According to Hall and Taylor, rational choice institutionalism in
the political domain draws our attention to “the role that strategic interaction between actors
plays in the determination of political outcomes” (1996: 951).
16. Although Aristotle emphasizes that political discourse is about future actions, so that it
requires a prospective account, political theorists recognize that the argumentation put forward
in political discourse is also often about past performance and requires a retrospective account.
Domains of communica- genres of communi-

communicative activity speech events
tion cative activity
types
- criminal trial Plea of the defence
Legal communication adjudication - civil court case at O.J. Simpson’s
- arbitration murder trial
- summoning
Political communication deliberation - American presidential 1960 Nixon-Kennedy
debate debate
- general debate in
European Parliament
-Prime Minister’s
Question Time
Interpersonal communion-seeking - chat Dima’s talk with
communication - love letter Corina on May 13
- party invitation about how they spent
the weekend
Figure 3. Speech events representing communicative activity types implementing certain
genres of communicative activity instrumental in 3 communicative domains
events only as instantiations of a particular communicative activity type. All indi-

vidual television interviews with a politician, for instance, are then seen as speci-
mens of the activity type known as political interview. In Figure 3, which is taken
from my book Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse (van Eemeren
2010: 143), I have illustrated, with the help of some examples, the relationships
between speech events, communicative activity types, genres of communicative
activity, and domains of communication.
3. Institutional constraints on strategic maneuvering
Because of their empirical status, communicative activity types are not on a par
with analytic constructs such as the theoretical model of critical discussion. Instead
of normative idealizations, the various communicative activity types are descrip-
tive categorizations of conventionalized communicative practices.17 In principle,
17. The pragma-dialectical conceptualization of the macro-contextual dimension of argumen-

tation has some common ground with Walton and Krabbe’s (1995) theoretical treatment of ‘dia-
logue types,’ but the theoretical status of ‘dialogue types’ is neither explicitly normative nor ex-
plicitly descriptive, so that it is not clear whether the distinction between dialogue types is stipu-
lated on the basis of analytic considerations or based on empirical analysis. In spite of frequent
references to empirical observations, Walton maintains that each dialogue type constitutes a
separate normative model of argumentation, with its own specific rules prescribing what good
and fallacious argumentation is (1998: 30). More closely associated with the pragma-dialectical
communicative activity types can be distinguished empirically through observa-

tion of their distinctive features and lay bare what their conventionalization in-
volves. In a great many cases, making such an effort is not even necessary because
the communicative activity types concerned are generally familiar to everyone.
Communicative activity types can be defined more precisely by describing the
specific institutional goals they are to serve to realize their institutional point, the
distinctive conventions pertaining to the communication involved, and the other
characteristics of their format. In the case of a General Debate in Dutch parlia-
ment, for example, the specific institutional goal is to confront the government
with the views of the people’s elected representatives about their policy plans and
the way in which they will be financed and to do so in accordance with the insti-
tutional conventions for conducting a General Debate dictated by parliamentary
tradition and the debate format laid down in parliamentary procedure. The spe-
cific institutional goal of an American Presidential Debate — to mention another
example — is to make clear to the voters what their choice between the candidates
involves by means of a television debate carried out in accordance with the insti-
tutional conventions developed in the American tradition and the debate format
spelled out and agreed upon in advance.18
Although communicative activity types can be completely non-argumenta-
tive, more often than not, argumentation comes in, whether directly or indirectly,
so that the communicative activity type concerned is wholly or partly argumenta-
tive. If a communicative activity type is inherently, essentially or predominant-
ly argumentative or incidentally argumentation plays an important part in it, it
is worthwhile to characterize the communicative activity type argumentatively.
Although in various communicative activity types the argumentative dimension
is substantiated in different ways, depending on the specific institutional require-
ments which need to be fulfilled to realize the specific institutional point of the
activity type, the theoretical model of a critical discussion can be instrumental in
this endeavor. Taking the four stages of a critical discussion as the point of depar-
ture, four focal points can be identified in the resolution process taking place in
approach are Jacobs and Aakhus (2002), Aakhus (2003) and Jackson and Jacobs (2006), who
view the specific conditions imposed on argumentative discourse in a specific argumentative
context in terms of design.
18. In only informally conventionalized communicative activity types in the domain of inter-
personal communication which prototypically implement the genre of communion-seeking,
such as a chat between friends, the institutional point is keeping the interpersonal relation-
ship going. Even if there may not be any well-defined institutional goals to be pursued, there
will nevertheless be some kind of implicit format involving certain “institutional” conventions
regulating the exchange which need to be observed, however noncommital they may seem, to
participate satisfactorily in these communicative activity types.
the discourse that need to be taken into account in an argumentative character-

ization of a communicative activity type. These focal points correspond with the
empirical counterparts in argumentative discourse of the four stages of a critical
discussion. In giving an argumentative characterization of a communicative activ-
ity type they need to be taken into account by determining in exactly what way
these constitutive phases in the process of resolving a difference of opinion on the
merits are represented in the communicative activity type concerned. The empiri-
cal counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion are in pragma-dialectics
known as the initial situation (confrontation stage), the starting points (opening
stage), the argumentative means and criticisms (argumentation stage), and the out-
come (concluding stage).19
Figure 4 indicates how the argumentatively relevant institutional properties
of certain clusters of communicative activity types implementing the same genre
of communicative activity can be described for the empirical counterparts of the
four stages of a critical discussion. In this way, the communicative activity types
concerned are characterized pragma-dialectically as argumentative activity types.
As the argumentative characterizations given in Figure 4 make clear, in some
critical discussion confrontation stage opening stage argumentation stage concluding stage
genres of commu- initial situation procedural and mate- argumentative possible outcome
nicative activity rial starting points means and criticism
adjudication dispute; 3rd party largely explicit codi- argumentation from settlement of
with jurisdiction to fied rules; explicitly facts and conces- the dispute by a
decide established concessions interpreted motivated decision
sions as conditions for ap- 3rd party; no return
plying a legal rule initial situation
deliberation mixed disagree- largely implicit argumentation de- decision by
ment; decision up intersubjective rules; fending incompat- participants or by
to participants or a explicit and implicit ible standpoints in non-interactive
non-interactive 3rd concessions on both critical exchanges audience; resolution
party audience sides difference for part
of audience
communion- non-mixed differ- implicitly and infor- argumentation conclusion by
seeking ence mally regulated incorporated in mutually accepted
(potentially develop- practice; broad zone directly and indi- outcome or return
ing into mixed); of agreement of rectely expressed initial situation
decision up to the shared starting points multi-varied inter-
parties personal exchanges
Figure 4. Argumentative characterizations of 3 clusters of communicative activity types
19. Using the model of a critical discussion in all cases as the analytical point of reference en-
sures not only a consistent and coherent appreciation of the argumentative dimension, but also
creates unity in the comparison between the various communicative activity types. Diversity is
in this way not an unsubstantiated relativistic point of departure, but a result that may follow
from a systematic comparison of the various manifestations of argumentative reality.
argumentative activity types the definition of the initial situation is more open to
being shaped by the preferences of the participants than in others. A similar vari-
ety can be observed with regard to the choice of procedural and material starting
points, the use of argumentative means and the advancement of criticism, and the
possible outcomes of the argumentative exchange.
Deliberation as it is implemented in public debate between elected represen-
tatives, or in interviews in which they are held to account, usually starts from
real or projected disagreement between the participants in the debate or the in-
terview but is in fact in the first place directed at convening the members of the
listening, reading or watching audience, who are in fact the primary audience.
In the critical exchanges all parties make use of each other’s explicit and implicit
concessions and act in accordance with explicit or implicit procedural rules. The
listening, reading, or watching audience is, as a rule, not interactive. Nevertheless,
its members determine, in some sense, the outcome of the deliberation because
they decide at the end of the critical exchanges whether they (or some of them)
have changed their minds regarding the issues being deliberated upon. Thus, they
decide if their initial differences have been resolved or whether the initial situation
will be maintained.
In analyzing and evaluating strategic maneuvering, the institutional goals and
conventionalization of the communicative activity types in which the argumenta-
tive discourse takes place need to be taken into account because they impose extrin-
sic constraints on the strategic maneuvering taking place in these communicative
activity types. The possibilities for strategic maneuvering in the macro-context of
a particular communicative activity type are usually in some respects determined
by the institutional preconditions prevailing in the communicative practice con-
cerned. In the pragma-dialectical approach the argumentative characterization of
the communicative activity type provides the point of departure for methodically
tracing which institutional preconditions pertain to the strategic maneuvering in
this specific activity type. This is because the characterization points out in which
particular ways the conduct of argumentative discourse is conventionalized.
Due to the institutional requirements applying to particular activity types,
in each communicative activity type turned argumentative activity type, certain
modes of strategic maneuvering may be institutionally regarded as suitable or,
as the case may be, not suitable to pursuing the participants’ ‘missions’ in real-
izing the institutional point of the activity type concerned in the macro-context in
which the argumentative discourse takes place.20 As a rule, the more emphatically
20. In some communicative activity types the participants have different missions. In Prime
Minister’s Question Time, for instance, the parliamentarians’ mission (with a differentiation
depending on whether they suppport the government or are part of the opposition) is to hold
the conventionalization of an argumentative activity type is articulated, the easier

it is to recognize the institutional preconditions for strategic maneuvering prevail-
ing in that activity type.21
At each stage of an argumentative exchange, all three aspects of strategic ma-
neuvering can be affected by the institutional preconditions imposed on the argu-
mentative discourse by the activity type in which the discourse takes place. There
may be constraints on the topical choices that can be made, on the adaptation to
audience demand that can be effectuated, and on the presentational devices that
can be used. Although these constraints are in principle a limitation of the pos-
sibilities the parties have for strategic maneuvering, they may also create special
opportunities for strategic maneuvering, if only for one of the parties.
The institutional preconditions for strategic maneuvering can vary in some re-
spects from one communicative activity to the other depending on the impact the
need for realizing the institutional point of a particular communicative activity and
its specific institutional goals and requirements have on the argumentative charac-
teristics of the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion. The
institutionalized macro-context of a General Debate in Dutch parliament imposes
certain conventional constraints on the strategic maneuvering that is considered
institutionally acceptable in the various stages of this argumentative activity type
which are in the first place determined by the parliamentary code of conduct es-
tablished by the parliamentarians themselves. In a General Debate, however, there
are also ‘second order’ conventional constraints imposed on the strategic maneu-
vering, which are as it were dictated by the parliamentarians’ missions as front
benchers or back benchers, or as supporters of the government or members of
the opposition, and by their various missions with regard to satisfying the elector-
ate — who may be their primary audience. Although they cannot afford to ignore
the questions, statements, and other contributions to the exchange of their fellow
parliamentarians (because then they could be perceived as non-cooperative, un-
responsive, impolite or even rude by their primary audience), their strategic ma-
neuvering will be, in the first place, designed to convince their primary audience.
the government to account for its policies and actions whereas the Prime Minister mission is
defending them.
21. Pragma-dialectics distinguishes between primary preconditions, which are as a rule official,
usually formal, and often procedural, and secondary preconditions, which are as a rule unofficial,
usually informal, and often substantial. Among the primary preconditions of the communicative
activity type of a general plenary debate in the European parliament, for instance, are the rules of
order guarded by the chair and among the secondary preconditions are, for instance, the “European
predicament” implying that the parliamentarians need to combine serving the European interest
with serving the interest of their home countries (van Eemeren and Garssen 2010).
4. Pragma-dialectical research of argumentative discourse in the political

domain
To conclude, I would like to discuss some specific contributions that have been
made from a pragma-dialectical perspective to the study of argumentation in the
political domain. In ‘Democracy and argumentation’, a paper dating from 1992
(van Eemeren 2002), I started the pragma-dialectical research of argumentation
in the political domain by discussing what role argumentation can play in the po-
litical context of democracy. My point of departure was that democratization is
an act of institutionalizing uncertainty. It is inside the institutional framework for
processing conflicts offered by democracy that multiple forces compete. Although
what occurs depends on what participants do, no single force controls the out-
come. Here lies the decisive step towards democracy: the devolution of power from
a group of people to a set of rules.
In his book Capitalism, socialism and democracy, Schumpeter defines democ-
racy as “a political method, […] a certain type of institutional arrangement for ar-
riving at political — legislative and administrative — decisions” (1943/1950: 242).
The democratic element in the method is the periodic competition of leaders
(élites) for the votes of the electorate in free elections.22 This competition is the
distinctive feature of the modern political method. According to modern theore-
ticians, however, the stability of the democratic system in western democracy is
largely due to the fact that participation is minimized and democracy amounts in
fact to polyarchy, the rule of multiple minorities or even competing élites.23
To maintain political support among the population at large, in my view a
more participatory style of governing is required. The ideal of classical democracy
theory is that all the decisions be made by “rational and active and informed dem-
ocratic man” (Davis 1964: 29). Participatory democracy amounts first and fore-
most to an engagement of the members of the community, or society at large, in a
continual and public discourse about common interests, policies to be developed,
and decisions to be taken.
Regrettably, Schumpeter’s influence has obscured that present-day theory
of representative government is not the whole of democratic theory. In a criti-
cal analysis of participatory democracy, Schumpeter writes, that in order for the
participatory method to work, “everyone would have to know definitely what he
wants to stand for […], a clear and prompt conclusion as to particular issues would
22. The value of the democratic method over other political methods is that it allows for an ex-
tension of the number, size and diversity of the minorities that can bring their influence to bear
on policy decisions, and on the political ethos of society (Dahl 1956a, b, 1971).
23. See Dahl (1956a, b) and Sartori (1962).

have to be derived according to the rules of logical inference […] — all this the
model citizen would have to perform for himself and independently of pressure
groups and propaganda” (1943/1950: 253–254). Leaving aside the gross exaggera-
tions in this misrepresentation of the views of the classical theoreticians, I would
say that Schumpeter’s criticisms actually provide a good formulation of some
of the normative requirements that adequate education in a democratic society
should aim to fulfill.
It goes without saying that a more participatory democracy is to be preferred
to a purely representative one only if it can be shown to work advantageously as
an organizational system. Starting from the four ‘dimensions’ that are, according
to Bolman and Deal’s (1991) Modern approaches to understanding and managing
organizations, indispensable to any well-functioning organizational system, I have
tried to make clear that a democracy which is more participatory offers in fact bet-
ter prospects for an effective organizational system than a merely representational
democracy.
Presently in Western democracies, so-called “political discussions” are more
often than not just a one-way traffic of leaders talking down to their voters — or
“up” to their voters, in the case of populists. It is necessary to make a distinc-
tion between such quasi-discussions, which are in fact monologues calculated to
win the audience’s consent to the politician’s’ views, and discussion as a regulated
critical dialogue aimed at resolving a difference of opinion on the merits. To make
participation really contribute to the proceedings, instead of being merely a token
property of democracy, in my view democracy should always aim at having such
a critical discussion in the dialectical sense. Dialectical rules for argumentative
discourse are to my mind the crucial part of a discussion procedure which gives
substance to the ideal of participatory democracy. It is at the procedural level that
the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentative discourse can justify the gen-
eral claim that democracy is quintessentially institutionalized uncertainty by giv-
ing substance to what this involves.24
After the development of extended pragma-dialectics, I have continued my
research concerning political argumentation in recent years together with Bart
Garssen. We have concentrated our efforts on analyzing the specific preconditions
24. One might ask whether the pragma-dialectical approach is not a little bit Utopian in the
case of politics. Maybe indeed a little bit, I hope. But not too much, I should say. I wonder, in
fact, whether there is any other acceptable way of trying to cope with the overwhelming prob-
lems of change than by promoting a culture of critical discussion. Whether the ideal of critical
discussion is Utopian also depends, of course, on the attitudes and competences people have and
on the realization of certain socio-political preconditions. Next to social and political measures,
methodical education in argumentation and critical thinking is needed to stimulate fulfillment
of the ‘higher order’ conditions concerned.
for strategic maneuvering in the Plenary Debate in the European Parliament

(2010). Starting from the same theoretical perspective, Jose Plug has published
several articles about argumentative discourse in Dutch parliament, which are
applications of the theory and as such, I will not discuss them here. Instead, I
turn to Yvon Tonnard’s (2011) study Getting an issue on the table. This study is
part of a larger research project concerning confrontational strategic maneuver-
ing in the political domain carried out at the University of Amsterdam by Peter
Houtlosser and me, Jan Albert van Laar, Dima Mohammed, Corina Andone and
Yvon Tonnard.
The aim of Tonnard’s research was to give an account of how certain presenta-
tional tactics can be of help to a politician in getting the priority issues of his party
discussed in parliament when they are not on the agenda in order to show the
electorate that his party is more strongly committed to do something about these
issues than the other parties. In the theoretical part of her study, Tonnard makes
clear that, in the institutionalized context of a General Debate in Dutch parlia-
ment, attempts to get a specific issue discussed can be characterized as specific
strategic maneuvers and examines how the strategic function can be determined
of the presentational choices that are made. In the empirical part of her study she
analyzes some presentational tactics used by politicians to get their specific issue
on the table by focusing on efforts made by the leader of the Party for the Animals,
Marianne Thieme, to initiate a discussion on animal and environmental welfare
and by the leader of the Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders, to get the issue of stop-
ping Islamization discussed.
The strategic maneuvers Tonnard concentrates on are ‘topic shifting’ and ‘po-
larizing,’ which can both be characterized as confrontational strategic maneuvers
aimed at steering the discussion towards a mixed difference of opinion, in which the
parties involved hold opposite opinions. If the politician’s strategic maneuvers con-
sist of topic-shifting, a first tactic Tonnard distinguishes consists of giving a critical
response immediately followed by the expression of a new standpoint. The second
topic-shifting tactic is to imply a critical response by putting forward a new stand-
point. In both tactics the politician has to present his standpoint in such a way that
the new issue will be accepted for discussion in the debate, which means, according
to parliamentary convention, that it has to relate to the topic set by the Chair.
If the politician’s strategic maneuvers consist of polarizing the party’s stand-
points, a first tactic is to ascribe the standpoint opposite to his own to the political
opponent. Such a move could be easily established by the use of insulting lan-
guage, because this will almost automatically lead to disagreement, but in parlia-
mentary debate there is then a risk that the Chair will order the politician to take
his words back. The second polarizing tactic Tonnard discusses is to force the po-
litical opponent into opposition by making it virtually impossible for him to agree.
A politician can do so, for instance, by formulating his standpoint in a way that
insults the opponent or his electorate, so that he is more or less obliged to distance
himself from this point of view.
Tonnard’s research may have a follow-up which can also benefit from other
research concerning political discourse carried out by pragma-dialecticians such
as Mohammed (2009), Lewiński (2010) and Andone (2010). It could be examined,
for example, in which ways the Prime Minister engages in party-politics in Prime
Minister’s Question Time or in which ways the gap between the political estab-
lishment and the common people regarding a certain issue is articulated in online
forum discussions. In the context of political interviews on television it would, for
instance, be interesting to find out in which different ways both the interviewer
and the politician who is interviewed try to initiate discussions on specific issues.
The politician can be expected to try to get his party’s priority issues discussed
while the interviewer can be expected to try to discuss “debatable matters of politi-
cal controversy” (Andone 2010: 37–38).
Because both authors are contributing to this volume and speak for themselves,
I will pass over Dima Mohammed’s (2009) study “The Honourable Gentleman
should make up his mind”, in which she examines accusations of inconsistency
in response to questions asked in Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British
House of Commons, and Marcin Lewiński’s (2010) study Internet political discus-
sion forums as an argumentative activity type, dealing with the specific character-
istics of argumentative discourse in one of the new media. Two doctoral studies
completed at the University of Bucharest by Simona Cosoreci Mazilu (2010) and
Daniela Muraru (2010) will not be discussed by me either, because they are first of
all applications of the pragma-dialectical theory and no new contributions to the
theorizing.25 I turn instead to the pragma-dialectical study of political deliberation
by Corina Andone.
In Maneuvering strategically in a political interview, Andone (2010) sets out
to provide an argumentative explanation for the way in which politicians react in
political interviews to the accusation made by the interviewer that they have taken
on a standpoint which is inconsistent with a standpoint they have advanced earli-
er. Starting from a characterization of a political interview as an argumentative ac-
tivity type, Andone analyzes political interviews by treating them as a deliberative
25. Cosoreci Mazilu (2010) discusses in Dissociation and persuasive definitions as argumentative
strategies in ethical argumentation on abortion the topics indicated in the title of her dissertation
and Muraru (2010) analyzes in Mediation and diplomatic discourse the strategic use of dissoca-
tion and definitions in the negotiations leading to the Camp David agreement between Israelis
and Palestinians which were mediated with a carrot and a stick by the American President
Jimmy Carter.
practice aimed at maintaining a democratic political culture by holding politicians

accountable for their actions. Due to his public function, a politician is answerable
to the electorate for his political words and deeds; the interviewer takes on the task
of assessing these words and deeds critically to get a satisfactory explanation on
behalf of the public. Next to the main discussion, in a political interview all kinds
of sub-discussions may develop if the interviewer is not satisfied by the answers
given by the politician. This happens, for instance, when the interviewer consid-
ers the politician’s standpoint inconsistent with an earlier standpoint he has taken
and challenges the politician to clarify his change of position and justify it for the
viewers, listeners, or readers.
In Andone’s study, the institutional characteristics of a political interview are
the starting points of the analysis of the strategic function of the answers given by
British politicians in television interviews on the BBC in response to an accusation
of inconsistency by the interviewer. The analysis concentrates on cases in which
the politician has in fact no other option than accepting that the accusation of
inconsistency is correct. From a dialectical point of view he therefore has to with-
draw (at least) one of his standpoints, but this would amount to admitting that he
cannot account for his actions. He therefore tries to frame his responses in such
a way that they present compensating adjustments for his proclaimed shortcom-
ings. Andone’s analysis of television interviews with British politicians shows that
rephrasing one of the standpoints can be a compensating adjustment that enables
the politician to continue the discussion.
In her empirical research Andone distinguishes three patterns that this stra-
tegic maneuver can have: (1) reformulating the original standpoint in a way that
makes the politician’s support dependent on the fulfillment of certain specific con-
ditions; (2) reformulating it in a way that makes clear that in the interviewer’s
interpretation there is an inconsistency based on a misunderstanding; (3) refor-
mulating it in a way that enables the politician to claim that the original standpoint
concerned something else than the present standpoint (Andone 2010: 88–89). In
addition, Andone formulates soundness conditions for assessing the reasonable-
ness of the politician’s responses to an accusation of inconsistency consisting of a
withdrawal of the original standpoint by rephrasing it.
This is where I have to end my brief overview of recent developments in the
pragma-dialectical research program which are relevant to the study of the role
of argumentation in political deliberation. What more can be said at this moment
about the theoretical contributions this particular approach has to offer to this aca-
demic enterprise will, I hope, be made clear by others contributing to this volume.
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Strategic maneuvering
in European Parliamentary Debate*
Bart Garssen
University of Amsterdam
This chapter focuses on argumentation the institutional context of debate in the

European Parliament. A parliamentary debate is a distinct argumentative activ-
ity type. In the pragma-dialectical approach, argumentative activity types are
defined as conventionalized argumentative practices in which the possibilities
for strategic maneuvering are predetermined. What are the characteristics of the
activity type of a debate in European Parliament that predetermine the possibili-
ties for strategic maneuvering?
Keywords: political argumentation, pragma-dialectics, strategic maneuvering,

European Parliament, communicative activity type
1. Introduction
Up until now, compared to parliaments in the member states, the European

Parliament does not get much attention from the media. It is only when impor-
tant or spectacular decisions are made that the debates are broadcast. Still, the
European Parliament remains a powerful institution within the larger European
Union (EU), and its power is still growing.
In many respects the European Parliament differs quite considerably from na-
tional parliaments in the EU member states. For one thing, with 745 members,
representing 500 million European citizens, it is much bigger. But of its unique
relationships with other bodies in the EU it is also much more complex. Because
of these and other differences, the debate takes a rather special form, which also
has specific influences on the choices the participants in the debate make when it
comes to the kind of discussion. In other words: strategic maneuvering in European
* This article is partly based on van Eemeren and Garssen 2010.
doi 10.1075/bct.76.02gar
34 Bart Garssen
parliamentary debate is preconditioned by several special characteristics of the

European Parliament (van Eemeren 2010: 152).
In this chapter I aim to show that these preconditions are not only to be found
in institutional regulations and convention, but also in the fact that the discus-
sion takes places in a complex context in which many parties with many different
interest act. For instance, the members have to reconcile a quest for univocal com-
mon legislation that serves the whole Union while satisfying a variety of different
local interests and views — van Eemeren and Garssen dubbed this the European
Predicament (2010). Another example of a contextual constraint is the fact that
European Union strives for central regulation for matters of general importance,
while in many cases it seems to lack the power to successfully implement new
regulation and legislation in all member states at the same time.
In this chapter I try to show how these two contextual aspects of debate in
the European Parliament precondition strategic maneuvering in plenary debate
on legislation and regulation policy within the EU. I shall try to do so by char-
acterizing plenary European parliamentary debate as an argumentative activity
type which affects the conduct of political argumentative discourse. Consequently
I show by way of a series of examples how two types of preconditions influence
strategic maneuvering, especially selection from topical potential.
2. Plenary debate in the European Parliament
Together with the Council of the European Union, consisting of government

ministers from all the member states of the European Union (EU), the European
Parliament decides on legislation and policies initiated and proposed by the
European Commission, the politically independent institution representing and
upholding the interests of the EU as a whole. Although the European Parliament
blends a wide variety of national parliamentary traditions in its procedures, seat-
ing arrangements, and style, it also has certain distinctive features of its own, ow-
ing to the various phases in which its powers in the European Union (EU) have
evolved, the linguistic diversity it has to face, and the specific treaty obligations
it has to meet. In 2012 there are 754 Members of European Parliament (MEPs),
drawn from the 27 member states of the enlarged Union; these MEPs represent
over 140 different political parties, which are, in the European Parliament, orga-
nized into 7 Political Groups.
Initially, the powers of the European Parliament were limited to the right of
veto. The implementation of the co-decision procedure for legislation, however,
which was established under the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam,
substantially increased the political impact of the European Parliament and hence
the importance of its debates. After the Treaty of Lisbon, the co-decision procedure
was extended to almost all areas of policy and renamed “ordinary legislative pro-
cedure”.
In areas where the ordinary legislative procedure applies, the power is more
or less equally divided between the Parliament and the Council. The procedure
allows the European Parliament not only to veto legislation, but also to amend
it. At the same time, it locks the Parliament into a complex and intricate rela-
tionship with the Council, because a Commission proposal is presented to both
the Parliament and the Council. In practice, the parliamentary work is organized
through a system of standing and temporary committees that are responsible for
the preparatory work for plenary parliamentary sittings. The committees draw up,
adopt, and amend legislative proposals as well as their own-initiative reports, con-
sider Commission and Council proposals and, where necessary, prepare reports
to be presented to the plenary assembly. Committees spend much of their time
drawing up reports on legislation that is proposed by the Commission, but they
can also draw up “own-initiative reports” on issues that fall within the scope of the
committee’s competence.
Through the Political Groups, Parliament represents the people of Europe.
The Groups play a decisive role in choosing the President, Vice-Presidents, and
the committee chairs. They set the parliamentary agenda, choose the rapporteurs,
and decide on the allocation of speaking time (Corbett, Jacobs and Shackleton
2007: 70–71). At present there are 7 Political Groups, which represent the political
lines of thought prevalent in Europe, including the Eurosceptic movement, which
is represented by the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group. Each Political
Group consists of a great many national political parties.
Political Groups issue voting instructions to their members, both about how
to vote on texts and amendments and about which votes are particularly impor-
tant. The position of a Group is defined not by instructions from above but by
discussion and negotiation within the Group, involving the Group’s coordinator in
the relevant committee in the process. For a number of reasons Group “whipping”
systems are less strict than in most national parliaments.1 First, in Europe there
is no government demanding systematic support from its parliamentary major-
ity. Second, on some issues it is hard to agree on a common group line because
of the diversity of regional interests, national party interests, and other interests
represented within a Group. Third, there are fewer effective sanctions a Group can
take against dissident members than most national parliaments can bring to bear
(Corbett, et al. 2007: 108). Nevertheless, Corbett, Jacobs, and Shackleton observe,
1. Some Political Groups have taken up the British tradition of issuing one-, two- or three-line
whips (Corbett et al. 2007: 107).
36 Bart Garssen
“most Groups can count on well over 80 per cent of their members supporting
the Group line and this in turn means that it is the positions taken by Groups that
are usually decisive in determining parliament’s position” (2007: 108). However, if
their own member state’s interests are at stake, members may turn against Group
decisions.
Debates in the European Parliament are generally not as lively and certainly
not as interesting to the media as those conducted in national parliaments, even
if the European Parliament has developed methods to enhance its members’ role
in actually shaping the policy outcomes rather than just rubberstamping them or
serving simply as a forum (Corbett et al. 2007: 183).2 During the twelve plenary
sessions held each year in Strasbourg and the six held in Brussels, the President
ensures that Parliament’s Rules of Procedure are adhered to. Through his arbitra-
tion, the President guarantees that all activities of the institution and its constitu-
ent bodies run smoothly. Central to the organization of the debate is Rule 149,
especially Parts 1–4 (Allocation of speaking time and list of speakers):
1. The Conference of Presidents may propose to Parliament that speaking time
be allocated for a particular debate. Parliament shall decide on this proposal
without debate.
2. Members may not speak unless called upon to do so by the President. Members
shall speak from their places and shall address the President. If speakers de-
part from the subject, the President shall call them to order.
3. The President may draw up, for the first part of a particular debate, a list
of speakers that includes one or more rounds of speakers from each politi-
cal group wishing to speak, in the order of their size, and one non-attached
Member.
4. Speaking time for this part of a debate shall be allocated in accordance with
the following criteria:
(a) a first fraction of speaking time shall be divided equally among all the
political groups;
(b) a further fraction shall be divided among the political groups in propor-
tion to the total number of their members;
(c) the non-attached Members shall be allocated an overall speaking time
based on the fractions allocated to each political group under points (a)
and (b).
2. According to Corbett, Jacobs and Shackleton, the European Parliament “is not a very sexy
Parliament in media terms. Compared to many national parliaments, it lacks the cut and thrust
of debate between government and opposition. Like in the US Congress, its real work is done
in committee. The plurality of languages used makes the debate far from spectacular” (2007: 9).
Plenary debate on legislation typically starts with an opening statement by the rap-
porteur of the committee that prepared the draft report or opinion for the relevant
issue. Next the speakers contribute to the debate in the pre-designated order and
in the designated time. The President closes the debate when all speakers on the
list have had their say. Within a few days after the debate voting takes place.
There is relatively little regulation when it comes to individual contributions to
the debate. The most important rules are that the speeches should be within the allo-
cated speaking time and that the speaker should not depart from the subject. There
are hardly any rules for order in the Chamber.3 In most debates each MEP taking
part in the debate speaks only once and although the possibility to ask questions
exists (Rule 149, Part 8; the blue card procedure), interrupting a speaker is hardly
customary. Each MEP is free to use the allocated speaking time freely and can there-
fore also react to earlier contributions to the debate. Responding later to criticism by
other MEPs, however, is not possible. The general conclusion can be that in plenary
European parliamentary debate there is all in all little room for direct interaction.
3. Preliminary observations concerning strategic maneuvering in

European Parliamentary debate
As could be expected, debate in the European Parliament has a lot in common

with debates as they are held in the Parliaments of the Member States or in other
types of deliberative activities in the political domain. Nevertheless, because of the
unique set of characteristics and conventions constraining the strategic maneuver-
ing in the argumentative contributions to the debate, it is worthwhile to consider
European Parliamentary debate as a distinct argumentative activity type.
Debates held in the plenary sessions of European Parliament about the accept-
ability of legislative or non-legislative proposals prepared by the Committee or
about the acceptability of amendments to proposals start from a report prepared
by the relevant committee and presented by its rapporteur.
In the initial situation of the debate that can be reconstructed as the confronta-
tion stage, a Member of Parliament puts forward a positive standpoint in which
he expresses agreement to the proposal or a negative standpoint in which he ex-
presses non-agreement. In addition, the MEP can also put forward a standpoint
in which he expresses conditional agreement depending on whether one or more
amendments will be adopted. Each speaker addresses, via the President, the par-
liament as a whole. Since we may take it that the Members of Parliament have no
3. The Onesta report from 2005 stated that the rules “shall in no way detract from the liveliness
of parliamentary debates nor undermine Members’ freedom of speech.”
38 Bart Garssen
common opinion on the matter, there will be a difference of opinion between some
of them that is in the simplest case non-mixed. If another Member of Parliament
puts forward an opposing standpoint, this initiates a mixed difference of opinion
between him and the first speaker. Then there is presumably also a non-mixed (if
not mixed) difference of opinion between him and all or some of the other mem-
bers of the audience in the Chamber. Typically, the Members of Parliament can be
considered each others’ primary audience, since they address in the first place each
other. In addition, because the European Parliament is operating rather in isola-
tion and its debates are not well-reported, there is generally not a lot of involve-
ment to be expected of any other (wider) audience.
The Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament provide explicitly the of-
ficial procedural rules for the plenary debate that are part of the mutual agree-
ment in the opening stage. The set-up of the debate is basically monological and
the speaking time of the participants in the debate and the total duration of the
debate are fixed in advance. The speakers may take all legislation and motions that
have been accepted earlier to be part of the material starting points of the debate.
Because of the heterogeneous make-up of the European Parliament, the agree-
ment on material starting points in the opening stage will in many other cases only
be partial and cannot be presumed without any further verification.
There are no special constraints as to the argument schemes that can be em-
ployed in the argumentation stage. The types of argumentation used in European
parliamentary debates will be largely determined by the fact that the debate is a
political debate dealing with legislation and policy matters. Due to the monologi-
cal set-up of the debate mentioned in our characterization of the opening stage,
there is not much possibility for asking critical questions in reaction to argumen-
tation advanced by fellow parliamentarians. In practice, parliamentarians can only
respond to such critical questions by anticipating that they might rise. This means
that in the normal course of events in European parliamentary debate, the argu-
mentation stage will not be passed through to the full.
Although plenary debates in European Parliament are always officially and
explicitly closed by the President, there is no real concluding stage. Just like in
national parliamentary debates the differences of opinion are not concluded by
way of an intersubjective agreement on the outcome of the debate. The reason for
this is that in such parliamentary debates one hardly ever sees the debaters come
to agreement about the outcome of any of the (sub)discussions, if only because the
value-related material starting points of the various (Groups of) MEPs are as a rule
so different. The plenary parliamentary debates serve as a basis for justifying the
casting of votes by the various (Groups of) MEPs in the voting that always con-
cludes the decision-making process. This general characterization of the European
Parliament is schematically represented in Figure 1.
Communicative activity type of a plenary debate in European Parliament
genre of com- procedural and

argumentative means
municative initial situation material starting outcome
and criticism
activity points
disagreement on argumentation resolution of dis-
policy issue that is explicitly codified for or against the agreement for parts
in principle mixed and implicit rules proposal or policy of the audience and
and exceptionally of debate; explicit at issue in response subsequent settle-
non-mixed; decision and implicit po- to expressed or ment of disagree-
deliberation
through a settlement litical concessions anticipated criticism ment by majority of
by voting up to the by (Groups of) in exchanges votes audience;
audience consisting of participants in the of speeches by the no return to initial
all MEPs debate participants in the situation
debate
Figure 1. Argumentative characterization of the communicative activity type of a plenary

debate in European Parliament
Strategic maneuvering in plenary debates in European Parliament is not

only preconditioned by institutional regulations such as the debate format but,
by extension, also by other factors pertinent to realizing the institutional point
of this activity type such as the pursuit of the political goals of the Members of
Parliament. Because the debate is conducted between MEPs belonging to different
Political Groups and — at the current stage of European development also very
important — having different national backgrounds, in analyzing the strategic
maneuvering that takes place these other factors must also be taken into account.
Because it is unavoidable that MEPs in European Parliament not only promote
the European cause but also try to serve the national interests of the countries
they come from, when analyzing their strategic maneuvering, both the pursuit of
the common cause and the pursuit of national causes must be considered.4 While
European legislation is designed for the good of Europe as a whole, MEPs who feel
(as may in particular easily happen when agriculture and industry are at issue) that
their country will not really benefit from the new legislation or may even suffer
from it, may be inclined to promote views or propose amendments that combine
serving the interests of the European Union with protecting their national inter-
ests in a better way.
In discussing European agricultural policy typical reactions to proposals that
are made are the use of pragmatic argumentation or argumentation by example
in which the MEP warns Parliament against the negative consequences the new
4. When it is not immediately clear that a country’s national interests are heavily affected by
the proposed legislation or measure, MEPs are generally inclined to take a political view on the
matter and vote along political party lines.
40 Bart Garssen
legislative measures will have for his country. This happened, for instance, in a
European parliamentary debate held on 19 May 2008 when a proposal was dis-
cussed to “continue deducting 5% of the tobacco aid granted for the calendar
years 2008 and 2009 and to use those funds to continue financing the Community
Tobacco Fund, whose sole purpose is to finance information initiatives for im-
proving European citizens’ awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco consump-
tion.” Diamanto Manolakou, a Greek MEP, reacted as follows:
Diamanto Manolakou. Madam President, tobacco growers are being cruelly per-
secuted, as the anti-smoking campaign is tantamount to an anti-tobacco policy.
[…] Tobacco growing in Greece has declined by 73%. Ever-increasing numbers of
tobacco growers are unemployed. Whole areas are being abandoned because no
alternative crops are grown there […].5
Manolakou refers in her argumentation to the negative consequences of the

European tobacco policy for her own country. She presents her complaint strate-
gically as a general one (tobacco growers are persecuted cruelly), but this general
(and not specified) claim is backed up by an argument by example in which she
refers only to Greece.
In a contribution to the same debate, the Polish MEP Janusz Wojciechowski
tries to make it likely that the problems exceed the one country limits:
Janusz Wojciechowski. Madam President, rarely do decisions debated in this
House have such serious consequences for such a large number of people. The
issue before us today is the existence or non-existence of tobacco producers in
Europe. Tobacco production is the livelihood of around 120 000 farmers and, in-
cluding seasonal workers, it employs almost 400 000 people in both old and new
Member States. The case of Greece has already shown that the so-called reform of
the tobacco sector in fact means its liquidation. It is a death sentence for 120 000
farms, mostly small family holdings. I know such tobacco farms in Poland, but we
find them here too, on the outskirts of Strasbourg […].
also mentioning the small family holdings on the outskirts of Strasbourg,

Wojciechowki emphasizes the fact that the problem is not just a Polish or a
Greek problem, but a general European one, that even exists very close to where
Parliament meets. Both Manolakou and Wojciechowki make an effort to avoid
giving the impression that the problems are only regional and that they are only
arguing to protect the interests of their own country. In both cases argument by ex-
ample is used to defend the general claim — part of the pragmatic argumentation
5. The examples taken from plenary sessions of the European Parliament can be found in
the archives of Plenaries of the EP at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/debates.
html#sidesForm.
— that a certain policy has negative effects on many European countries. This
mode of strategic maneuvering is commonly used in discussion about agriculture
and industry.
Another mode of strategic maneuvering used to reconcile serving the interests
of the European Union with serving the different interests and views of the mem-
ber states is emphasizing the coherence of the EU legislation. Because all members
of the European Parliament may be expected to be in favor of a coherent legisla-
tion that does not contain any contradictions, the requirement of coherence can be
seen as a common starting point. The coherence of European legislation and pol-
icy can be emphasized by means of different types of argumentation and the need
for this coherence can be defended in different ways. A strategic maneuver that is
based on the jointly recognized need for coherence is pointing out that taking a
certain measure is contrary to European policy — or, as the case may be, in line
with European policy. In this special type of pragmatic argumentation the arguer
points at an undesired consequence of adopting the proposal concerned, namely
that European policy will no longer be coherent. In the debate about the tobacco
subsidies we referred to earlier, most MEPs opposing subsidies for the European
tobacco growers emphasized in one way or other the resulting inconsistency of
European policies. Here is an example provided by MEP Lily Jacobs:
Lily Jacobs. Tobacco kills about half a million European citizens a year. Even
amongst non-smokers there are 19 000 deaths a year from passive smoking. How
do I know that? That is the message in the television adverts the European Union
itself is having shown in all 27 Member States as part of a big anti-smoking cam-
paign. […] Is it not very strange that we are trying to combat smoking and at the
same time are funding tobacco production with European tax revenue? […]
Another MEP, Kartika Tamara Liotard, stresses in her contribution to the debate,
along a different line, the importance of a non-contradictory EU policy. She claims
that examples of incoherence have a negative effect on the public image of the
European Union:
Kartika Tamara Liotard. It is difficult to say what is more absurd, that the European
Union subsidies tobacco growing, or that Europe then uses part of the subsidies
for a fund that discourages tobacco smoking. Totally hypocritical measures like
that are precisely the reason why the EU has so little credibility with the public.
[…]
These contributions to the debate on the issue of tobacco subsidies have in com-
mon that the arguers point at the negative consequence of incoherence in European
policy resulting from accepting or rejecting a proposal. In so doing they employ
pragmatic argumentation. For the same purpose, however, they could just as well
42 Bart Garssen
have made use of comparison argumentation in which similar legislation that has
been accepted before is compared with the proposed legislation in order to in-
crease or decrease the acceptability of this new legislation.
The fact that Members of Parliaments have to reconcile the promotion of na-
tional and European interests is what van Eemeren and Garssen earlier dubbed
the “European Predicament”. Another characteristic of debate in the European
Parliament which preconditions debate and gives rise to special forms of strategic
maneuvering is the fact that the European Union strives for central regulation for
matters of general importance, while in many cases it seems to lack the power to
successfully implement new regulation and legislation in all member states at the
same time. A general agreement does not automatically and immediately lead to
the desired course of action in all member states. This goes for all kinds of agree-
ments: not only financial agreements about norms for national debts of member
states, but also to specific measures that have consequences for industry and ag-
riculture. Each of the different positions taken in debates about these problems
typically is accompanied by specific argument schemes.
A typical case is provided by several contributions to a parliamentary debate
held on 16 December 2010 on a Council Directive (1999/74/EC) which will en-
ter into force on 1 January 2012. The purpose of the Council Directive is to lay
down minimum standards for the protection of hens, tantamount to the abolition
of conventional battery cages as a system of rearing for the production of eggs.
This method of animal housing will be banned in favor of systems of rearing that
guarantee better animal welfare. At the time of the debate, member states still had
a year to comply with the directive. The problem here is that while in many mem-
ber states chicken farmers already complied with the new rules, in several other
member states chicken farmers will not be able to make the necessary changes in
time. How are the new rules to be implemented and how are distortions in terms
of market competition to be avoided? To all parties in the debate it is clear that
the directive will enter into force so the directive itself is not under debate. There
is disagreement among the participants about the actual implementation. Some
MEP’s think that the EU should not be too strict and should look into the pos-
sibility of extending the legal deadline. Other MEP’s think that it is important to
stick to the directive.
Jarosław Kalinowski points at the consequences of sticking to the original
dead line:
Jarosław Kalinowski. Mr. President, it is quite clear what the resolution under de-
bate is saying — there are to be no exceptions and no derogations. The European
Commission is to prepare instruments for enforcement and for penalizing pro-
duction that is not adapted to the requirements. […] Experts have found evidence
to show that demand for table eggs in the European Union will exceed supply after
the Laying Hens Directive has been implemented, which, in practice, will mean
imports from third countries of eggs produced in cages which are certainly not
adapted. I therefore call on the Commission to assess the feasibility of maintaining
the ban on the use of conventional cages from 1 January 2012 while also finding
solutions and clearly defined criteria for those producers who will not complete
the modernization process by 1 January 2012, as referred to in two amendments
supported by my group.
Like other arguers who are for extending the dead line and allowing exceptions,
Kalinowski makes use of a specific mode of strategic maneuvering in which prag-
matic argumentation is put forward, indicating that sticking to this dead line will
lead to a shortage of legal European eggs and an import of eggs from third coun-
tries. By the way, in presenting his standpoint, Kalinowski strategically avoids say-
ing that we should abandon the dead line. Instead, he says that the Commission
should maintain the ban, but should also find a ‘solution and clearly defined crite-
ria’ for those farmers who cannot comply with the regulations in time.
Esther Herranz García vents a similar opinion:
Esther Herranz García. Mr. President, in January 2012, 400 Spanish egg produc-
ers could disappear, which is around 30% of the total number in my country, with
the loss of the production of 300 000 tons of eggs. The European Union could
stop producing the 80 million eggs, which amount to 2 million tonnes, and if we
do not act very intelligently, the only thing that we would achieve would be that
they would be covered by imports from third countries, whose animal welfare
standards are much lower than those in the European Union. This 1999 direc-
tive, which requires that the space in cages for laying hens be increased, demands
that we act intelligently and positively, because otherwise, we will only weaken
European production and give extra trade opportunities to third countries where
the amount of space per bird is much smaller than what we currently have in
the European Union. This directive requires a great deal of effort from European
producers, as in Spain alone, it is understood that the cost is around EUR 600 mil-
lion. It should also not be forgotten that it has an economic impact that extends
to the egg products industry and the food industry in general. I therefore ask for
your support for the amendment tabled by the Group of the European People’s
Party (Christian Democrats) to paragraph 2, which asks for a solution to be found
at least for responsible farms and responsible businesses that are in the process of
transforming their farms and will have completed that transformation by January
2012. We need to support them in transforming their facilities and give them
time to complete that process, thus preventing farms from suffering irreparable
damage and preventing an overnight shortage in the EU market, which will con-
sequently increase prices for consumers. We need to respect the directive, give
44 Bart Garssen
the egg and egg products industries a chance and also respect the right to animal
welfare and the right of consumers to a reasonable price.
Herranz Garcia uses the same kind of pragmatic argumentation as Kalinowski

does. Her argumentation is sustained by concrete figures. What is striking in her
presentation is the phrasings like acting “intelligently” and “positively”. She does
so to portray the opposition as rigid rule followers who do not act intelligently and
do not take special circumstances in consideration.
These kinds of argumentation are typically countered by arguments in which
the arguer points out that no exceptions should be made. An example is the fol-
lowing reaction by Ulrike Rodust:
Ulrike Rodust. Mr. President, Commissioner, at this point, I would like once again
to point out that a decision has already been made to ban the practice of bat-
tery farming in cages. The Member States and the egg producers have had plenty
of time to implement the directive for the abandonment of conventional battery
practices. The time has not run out quite yet — there are still twelve months to
go before the practice is to be completely banned. I believe that we must ensure
that battery farming is completely banned by 1 January 2012. It must be pos-
sible to threaten the Member States who have not succeeded in implementing the
directive by then with legal action, such as financial penalties. We also need to
ensure that eggs which originate from farming practices that do not comply with
European law are not sold in the internal European market.
Rodust, like all other MEP’s who are against exceptions and extensions, makes
use of a specific variant of symptomatic argumentation that is based on a behav-
ioral rule. She points to the fact that a decision to ban battery farming already has
been made and that the chicken farmers have had plenty of time to implement the
directive. The general rule in this symptomatic argumentation is that when deci-
sions are made and there has been plenty of time to implement the decisions, all
parties involved should, without exception implement it. Britta Reimers sounds
even more resolute:
Britta Reimers. Mr. President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have
known for twelve years that battery farming practices would be banned in the
EU from 1 January 2012 onwards. How can it be that twelve years have not been
enough for some Member States to implement this ban in good time and to pre-
pare their poultry industry accordingly? This is just one of many examples of how
poor implementation leads to frustration. Egg producers in Member States who
have implemented the changes in good time are already experiencing competi-
tive anomalies that run counter to the principles of the EU. I am calling on the
Commission to require that the relevant law should be upheld in all Member
States and to do all it can to ensure that it is implemented. Eggs should no longer
be produced in battery cages after January 2012 and the then illegal eggs should
no longer be allowed to reach the shops, putting an end to their negative effect on
competition. The farmers who have changed their practices to comply with EU
requirements should not experience financial disadvantage while those who flout
the changeover reap the economic benefits. It is impossible to explain to people
in Europe why EU law does not apply equally in all Member States and why some
Member States are always seen to be dragging their feet. The recent crises show
where this can lead us. We need a Europe that acts in a concerted way, rather than
one in which every member can do as it pleases, regardless of the rest.
Just as Rodust, Reimers relies on the variant of symptomatic argumentation that is

based on special behavior rules, but she adds an argument from justice: European
Law applies to all member states equally. Furthermore she also uses pragmatic
argumentation: making exceptions will lead to a very undesirable situation. This
prediction is defended by a reference to the recent crisis.
4. Conclusion
This exploration of plenary debate in the European Parliament has led to a defi-
nition of this debate as a specific argumentative activity type characterized by a
particular initial situation, particular procedural and material starting points, par-
ticular argumentative means and criticism, and a particular kind of outcome. The
institutional preconditions for strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse
conducted in plenary debates in the European Parliament are determined by these
characteristics, but also by several other characteristics and circumstances of the
European Union that shape the debate in Parliament. In this chapter I showed two
of these special types of preconditions and their consequences.
The first of these special preconditions is a consequence of the fact that MEPs
are officially in Parliament to represent the people of Europe while at the same
time, when the interests of their own member states are at risk many MEPs have
the tendency to argue against a certain legislative proposal. This precondition calls
for strategic maneuvering involving a specific selection from the topical potential.
In many cases, pragmatic argumentation in which the MEP points at the negative
consequences of a certain proposal is accompanied by argument from example.
The second precondition relates to the fact that implementation of EU regulation
and policy in member states is not as straightforward as the EU politicians would
wish. Often member states are late in implementing regulations or simply refuse
to comply. This preconditions also constraints the topical potential, as politicians
often rely on pragmatic argumentation pointing at the negative consequences of
making exceptions and symptomatic argumentation based on behavioral rules.
46 Bart Garssen
References
Corbett, Richard, Francis Jacobs, and Michael Schackleton. 2007. The European Parliament.
London: John Harper Publishing.
DOI: 10.1075/aic.2
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Bart Garssen. 2010. “‘In varietate concordia’ — United in diver-
sity: European parliamentary debate as an argumentative activity type.” Controversia: The
International Journal of Discussion and Democratic Revival 7 (1): 19–37.
Pursuing multiple goals
in European Parliamentary Debates
EU immigration policies as a case in point
Dima Mohammed
In this chapter I shed light on the multi-purposive nature of debates in the

European Parliament. As a case in point, I examine a debate on immigration in
the wake of a migratory crisis in the Italian island of Lampedusa in early 2011.
I analyze the points of view argued for by MEPs, aiming at identifying the dif-
ferent institutional goals that are typically pursued and characterizing the ways
in which these goals shape the argumentative exchanges. The link between the
multiple goals communicators have and the discourse choices they make can
be assumed on the basis of previous research (see Craig 1990; Jacobs et al. 1991;
Tracy 1984; Tracy and Coupland 1990). In line with the pragma-dialectical view
of argumentative discourse taking place in the context of more or less institu-
tionalized argumentative activity types (van Eemeren 2010), institutional goals
are understood as those goals that can be attributed to arguers on the basis of the
type of activity in which they are engaged. In identifying the institutional goals,
I follow Craig (1986, 1990) and consider not only goals which are intentional,
formal, and directly responsible for a certain discourse choice, but also goals
which are functional, strategic, and only indirectly responsible for discourse
choices. The analysis shows that the MEPs pursued three kinds of goals: goals
that are 1) assigned to them by the occasion of the debate; 2) related to the pow-
ers of Parliament; and 3) associated with the different identities they assume in
Parliament. While the pursuit of the occasion-related and powers-related goals
gave rise to multiple simultaneous discussions, the pursuit of the identity-related
goals guided the MEPs’ choices and formulations in these discussions.
Keywords: argumentative activity types, debates on statements, European

Parliament, institutional goals, simultaneous discussions, strategic maneuvering
doi 10.1075/bct.76.03moh
48 Dima Mohammed
1. Introduction
In public political discourse, participants are typically out to achieve multiple goals
simultaneously. In a public discussion about a health care plan proposed by a gov-
ernment official, for example, a politician from the opposition would be typically
out for criticizing the government’s proposal and at the same time for advocating
any alternative plans that his party might have. Furthermore, the politician would
also be out for challenging the competence of the party in power, promoting his
own party as a better leader for the country, as well as advancing the interests of
his electorate base. The pursuit of these multiple goals shapes the contributions the
politician makes to the discussion. Typically, such contributions would be strate-
gically designed in order to achieve, simultaneously, the multiple goals which are
pursued. Knowledge of the different goals pursued by participants in public politi-
cal discourse sheds significant light on the strategic aspects of the discourse and
is therefore necessary for a proper understanding and a meaningful analysis of it.
Parliamentary debates are interesting venues for public political arguments
where multiple goals are pursued. In these debates, the goals that the discussants
are out to achieve are to a large extent defined by the roles they play and the func-
tions they are expected to fulfill in Parliament. Debates in the European Parliament
are particularly interesting. The complex structure of European Union (EU) insti-
tutions gives rise to a complex web of roles and relationships between the different
agents in these institutions. The relationship between the European Parliament,
the European Commission, and the Council of the European Union is particularly
interesting. The Parliament, which is the representative of the European people
and the only directly elected EU institution, shares its powers with the other two
institutions. The Council, which is not to be confused with the European Council
where the heads of EU states or governments sit, is composed of national minis-
ters, and is considered the voice of the member states. The Commission, which
is composed of 28 commissioners (one per member-state) each responsible for a
particular portfolio on the EU level, is generally considered the executive arm of
the EU. These three institutions share EU policy and law making in a complex way.
A good simplified version of it is provided on the official EU website as follows:
This ‘institutional triangle’ produces the policies and laws that apply throughout
the EU. In principle, it is the Commission that proposes new laws, but it is the
Parliament and Council that adopt them. The Commission and the member states
then implement them, and the Commission ensures that the laws are properly
taken on board. (Europa 2011a)
Pursuing multiple goals in European Parliamentary Debates 49
This complex structure of EU institutions accounts to a good extent for the mul-
titude of goals Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) pursue in their
debates.1
In this chapter, I would like to shed light on the multi-purposive nature of
European Parliamentary debates. My aim is to identify the different goals that
MEPs are typically out to achieve in EU parliamentary debates and characterize
the ways in which these goals shape the argumentative exchanges in the debates.
The analysis is based on the assumption that the strategic aspects of discourse can
be explained by appealing to the multiple goals that underlie the discourse. The
assumption is supported by previous research, in which the link between the mul-
tiple goals communicators have and the discourse choices they make has been in-
vestigated (see Craig 1990; Jacobs et al. 1991; Tracy 1984; Tracy & Coupland 1990).
In this chapter, I am particularly interested in identifying the different institutional
goals that MEPs pursue. In line with the pragma-dialectical view of argumentative
discourse taking place in the context of more or less institutionalized argumenta-
tive activity types (van Eemeren, 2010), institutional goals are understood as those
goals that can be attributed to arguers on the basis of the type of activity they
are engaged in.2 Institutional goals are in this sense extrinsic to argumentation
and therefore different in nature from the dialectical or rhetorical goals which
are intrinsic to any argumentative practice (Mohammed 2007).3 In identifying the
1. A crucial element of the complex structure of the EU institutions is related to the national
vs. European dimensions of the roles MEPs play. In their study about EU Parliamentary de-
bates, van Eemeren and Garssen (2010) show how the argumentative practice in EU plenary
debates reflects the MEPs’ attempt to balance between the two in order to realize the EU motto
of achieving “unity in diversity.”
2. Institutional goals can be considered a subtype of what Clark and Delia (1979) distinguish
as instrumental goals. These are goals that are related to “a specific obstacle or problem defining
the task of the communicative situation” (1979: 200).
3. In his examination of goals in argumentation, Gilbert (1996, 2007) distinguishes between
goals forming the immediate strategic object of the encounter (task goals), and goals concern-
ing the relationship between the arguers (face goals). In Gilbert’s account, convincing someone
of the acceptability of a claim in just one of the task goals that arguers can have. But it is not
necessarily always a goal of argumentation. Arguments can be advanced in pursuit of other
task or face goals. As he puts it, “The proponent might, for example, actually want the opposer
to not accept the claim, but to move to another related claim. In addition, a proponent might
suddenly have another goal, say a face goal, that intervenes to cause a backing off of the original
task goals.” (1996: 225) Institutional goals can be viewed as task goals. However, unlike Gilbert’s
task (or face) goals, institutional goals are in this work not taken to be alternatives to the goal
to convince, but rather additional goals that arguers pursue. In an earlier work (Mohammed
2007), I have argued that, in ideal situations, the goal to convince is instrumental for these other,
institutional, goals.
50 Dima Mohammed
different institutional goals, I follow Craig (1986, 1990) and consider as goals not
only those which are intentional, formal, and directly responsible for a certain
discourse choice, but also goals which are functional, strategic, and only indirectly
responsible for discourse choices.
In line with van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005) and van Eemeren (2010), I
also assume that institutional considerations shape argumentative exchanges by
imposing limitations and opening up possibilities for arguers’ strategic maneuver-
ing. According to van Eemeren, institutional rules and conventions impose con-
straints on all the stages of an argumentative discussion (2010: Ch. 5). The rules
and conventions determine which types of disagreement are allowable, what roles
discussants can play, which argumentative moves are permissible and how the out-
come of a discussion is to be determined.4 In this chapter, I aim at investigating the
link between the different institutional goals that MEPs try to achieve and some
discourse choices they make in the different stages of the discussion. In particular
I aim at investigating the link between the goals and those discourse choices made
by MEPs in relation to the initial disagreements giving rise to the argumentative
exchanges.
As a case in point, I analyze a European Parliamentary debate on immigra-
tion. The debate at issue, entitled “Immediate EU measures in support of Italy
and other Member States affected by exceptional migratory flows,” took place
as part of the European Parliamentary plenary session of 15 February 2011 in
Strasbourg (European Parliament 2011). It came in response to a massive influx
of refugees in the Italian island of Lampedusa, following the political unrest in
North Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya) in early 2011. The debate started with
a statement made by the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström,
and was followed by short speeches made by MEPs who took turns to express
their positions towards the issue of the debate. I shall start by summarizing the
statement of the Commissioner and the contributions made by MEPs (Section 2).
Following that, I shall analyze the statement and the contributions by reconstruct-
ing the standpoints expressed in them and the arguments advanced in support
of these standpoints (Section 3). The analysis will be discussed in view of back-
ground information about debates on Commissioners’ statements in the European
Parliament in order to gain insight into the context in which the discourse occurs.
The standpoints and arguments will be examined in light of the different powers
of the European Parliament and the roles MEPs are expected to play, aiming to
identify the goals that MEPs are out to achieve (Section 4). Furthermore, I shall
highlight ways in which institutional goals shape the argumentative exchanges by
4. See Mohammed (2009) and Andone (2010) for examples of how different institutional con-
texts shape the argumentative exchanges that occur in them.
investigating possible connections between the goals MEPs pursue and the issues
they raise, expressed in their standpoints, the arguments they advance and the
starting points they assume in the discussion (Section 5).
2. Debating the EU response to “exceptional migratory flows”
The debate at issue came after the Italian Minister of Interior, Roberto Maroni
called on Europe to assist Italy in facing the exceptionally high number of refu-
gees arriving at the little Italian island of Lampedusa. Around 5500 men, women,
and children, mostly Tunisian, had arrived at the island by boats fleeing a country
in turmoil, where a peaceful revolution had led to the collapse of the regime a
month earlier. The debate started with a statement by the Commissioner for Home
Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, in which EU actions in response to the critical situ-
ation were outlined. Following the statement by the Commissioner, MEPs repre-
senting Political Groups in the Parliament5 expressed the positions of their Groups
towards the crisis and towards the measures proposed by the Commissioner. The
debate continued with contributions from other MEPs and was closed by con-
cluding remarks from the Commissioner. The debate lasted one hour in which 33
MEPs spoke.
Debates on statements are quite common in the European Parliament. In the
6th parliamentary term (2004–2009), these debates constituted 24.12% of the total
debates conducted in Parliament (Corbett et al. 2011: 196). These debates are gov-
erned by the Parliament’s rules of procedure, which grant Commissioners (as well
as ministers from the EU Council and the heads of states or governments who are
members of the European Council) the right to ask the President of Parliament for
permission to make statements in Parliament. It is up to the President to decide
when statements may be made and also whether statements are to be followed by
debates or by brief and concise questions from MEPs instead (See Rule 110 in the
rules and procedures of the 7th parliamentary term: European Parliament 2010).
One of the main powers of the Parliament is the supervisory power by means
of which scrutiny and control over the work of the executive are exercised (Corbett
et al. 2011: Ch. 15; Europa 2011b; Hix et al. 2007: 12–21; Staab 2011: 67–69). One
of the main responsibilities of the Commission, which is considered the executive
arm of the EU, is to implement EU laws and policies (Leonard 2010: 58). This is
5. In the European Parliament, members do not sit in national delegations but in cross-national
Political Groups, instead. MEPs can also remain non-attached (also called non-affiliated). After
the 2009 elections, 7 Groups were formed and 27 MEPs remained non-attached (Corbet et al.
2011: 78–128; Leonard 2010: 72).
52 Dima Mohammed
mainly done by “passing concrete rules and regulations that turn legislation into
practice” (Staab 2011: 51). The Commission is expected to explain its actions before
Parliament on a regular basis. Debating statements made by Commissioners about
proposed rules and regulations is one of the ways by means of which Parliament
exercises its supervisory power over the Commission (Corbett et al. 2011: 314–
315). The statement of the Commissioner for Home Affairs and the debate about
it are best understood in the context of this control. The supervisory power of the
Parliament was granted to it by the Treaty of Rome, but this power is growing with
time. It is often argued that the Parliament’s actual supervisory power is stronger
than what the Rome Treaty has granted (Leonard 2010: 75–77). As Corbett et al.
explain, not all the mechanisms through which Parliament scrutinizes the perfor-
mance of the executives are established by the Treaties; some of these mechanisms
were “established by practice over time and accepted as part of the parliamentary
system” (Corbett et al. 2011: 314). For example, in practice, Parliament can take
the initiative and ask the Commission to make a statement on important issues of
current interests (Corbett et al. 2011: 314).
The Commissioner started her statement with a briefing of the situation. The
briefing included information about the critical situation in Lampedusa as well
as information about the efforts that had already been made by the Commission
to address the crisis. In addition to reporting about what had already been done,
the Commissioner expressed the willingness of the Commission to take further
measures, namely to assist Italy and Tunisia. Assistance for Italy would include
financial assistance as well as expertise from several European institutions such
as Frontex6 and the European Asylum Support Office. Support for Tunisia would
include economic as well as political measures. The Commissioner formulated her
statement in such a way that the assistance of Italy and of Tunisia was presented
as both a proposal that she defends and a course of action that the Commission
is ready to take. In outlining the different measures to be taken, she sometimes
emphasized the willingness of the Commission to take certain measures and other
times stressed the importance of the measures proposed.
In justifying her proposal to assist Italy, Ms. Malmström appealed to the prin-
ciple of EU solidarity. The principle is based on the (European) Treaties and can
therefore be appealed to very convincingly. A principle of solidarity with Tunisia,
which could justify the proposal to assist Tunisia, would obviously not be as pow-
erful as the principle of solidarity between EU member states. In fact, the prin-
ciple might not be acceptable for many of the MEPs. That made it necessary for
the Commissioner to look for a different justification for her proposal to assist
6. FRONTEX is the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the
External Borders.
Tunisia. Alternatively, she invoked the authority of Catherine Ashton, the EU High
Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who had, the day before,
expressed solidarity with Tunisia and its democratic transition and offered politi-
cal and financial support to the Tunisian authorities. Later in her statement, Ms.
Malmström supported her proposal by presenting solidarity with Tunisia as part
of a medium-term strategy to tackle migratory flows. In this strategy, support for
the ‘democratic and economic transition’ in Tunisia complements effective border
control. A third principle, which seemed to guide the Commission’s proposals and
which the Commissioner openly emphasized, was the principle of humane treat-
ment for people in need for international protection. Ms. Malmström presented
the principle as underlying both EU and national laws and called for EU member
states to “pay specific attention to vulnerable categories of persons in need of inter-
national protection.” This last principle was repeatedly invoked by MEPs in their
contributions, in particular in contributions of MEPs from green and left-wing
Groups.
The reactions of the MEPs to the Commissioner’s statement were diverse.
While some included direct reactions to the concrete measures proposed in the
Commissioner’s statement, some others addressed the principles invoked in jus-
tifying the measures proposed, or addressed other issues such as the relationship
between the EU and North African current and previous rulers, or even the poli-
cies and actions of EU member states. The diversity of the ways in which MEPs re-
acted to the Commissioner’s statement is strongly connected to the complex web
of relationships between EU institutions and the consequent multitude of roles
MEPs play and the goals they pursue.7
The first reaction to the Commissioner’s statement came from Simon Busuttil,
an MEP from Malta and the leader of the largest Political Group in the European
Parliament at the time (the Group of the European People’s Party — EPP Group).8
In his contribution, Mr. Busuttil was mainly concerned with the concrete mea-
sures needed to tackle the crisis in Lampedusa. He advocated a five-step response
which, he emphasized, should provide urgent and tangible help. Even though all of
the steps proposed were related to the measures proposed by the Commissioner,
the relation between the two proposals was not always clear in the MEP’s speech. In
fact, the MEP presented his own proposal in relation to that of the Commissioner
7. In this chapter, I restrict the analysis to the contributions of the six MEPs representing
Groups. The restriction is primarily motivated by considerations of space. However, it is also
the case that the need to address different concerns and pursue multiple goals is much stronger
among MEPs representing Groups than it is among non-affiliated MEPs.
8. The EPP Group is a center-right Group (Christian Democrats) with 265 members out of the
total 736 MEPs elected in the 2009 elections.
54 Dima Mohammed
only when he presented his own as a better alternative. Otherwise, he chose to

simply ignore the Commissioner’s proposal. Ignoring the Commissioner’s pro-
posal when presenting his own could create the impression that the MEP’s pro-
posal addresses issues that were not addressed in the Commissioner’s proposals.
Such an impression is obviously to the advantage of the MEP. This was especially
interesting when considering Mr. Busuttil’s invoking of the principle of solidar-
ity between EU states and calling on the Commission to implement it. The MEP
ignored that the Commissioner had already emphasized that “the EU common re-
sponse should be based on the principle of EU solidarity between Members States”
and reminded his listeners that the Treaty stipulates that “[the EU] immigration
policy should be based on the principle of solidarity and on the just sharing of re-
sponsibility.” The MEP ended his contribution by criticizing the Commission for
not fulfilling its responsibility in implementing the Treaty.
The second reaction to the Commissioner’s statement came from a representa-
tive of the second biggest Group. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, from Spain, spoke
on behalf of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats
in the European Parliament (S&D Group).9 Contrary to Mr. Busuttil, Mr. López
Aguilar didn’t disagree with the Commissioner. In his speech, he clearly expressed
his Group’s support for the proposals made by the Commissioner: to support
Tunisia in its transition to democracy and support Italy in dealing with the ex-
ceptional flow of immigrants. Also unlike Mr. Busuttil, Mr. López Aguilar did not
go into the details of the measures to be taken. Instead, he addressed the general
policies that underlie the measures proposed. He recommended investment in de-
velopment cooperation and in assistance for Tunisia in its way towards democracy
as well as in assistance for the EU countries with the challenge of primary care in
response to immigration and with the challenge of managing the joint borders.
Mr. López Aguilar too, emphasized the principle of EU solidarity and shared re-
sponsibilities.
Mr. López Aguilar’s contribution was followed by a contribution by Niccolò
Rinaldi, from Italy, speaking on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and
Democrats for Europe (ALDE Group).10 In his contribution, Mr. Rinaldi seemed
to be mainly concerned with the performance of the Italian Government, which
he criticized fiercely. Mr. Rinaldi advanced a long list of accusations against the
Italian Government, but his main criticism was that the Italian authorities were not
acting in line with the EU treaties. According to him, Italy “has the habit of blam-
ing Europe when it suits, only to ignore it irritably” when Brussels disapproves of
9. The S&D Group is center-left with 184 seats in the 7th Parliamentary term (2009–2014).
10. The ALDE Group was third biggest Group in the 7th Parliamentary term, with 85 MEPs.
Italian policies. This ‘habit’ undermined the European project, the MEP claimed.
He closed his contribution by calling for a sustainable EU immigration policy
based on five components: “democracy, development, respect for international
law, European solidarity and also, above all, no prejudicial rhetoric.”
After Mr. Rinaldi, Barbara Lochbihler, a German MEP spoke on behalf of
the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/ALE Group). Ms.
Lochbihler agreed with the proposals made by the commissioner and proposed
concrete measures that could be taken in the course of implementing the propos-
als. The measures she suggested reflected the MEP’s concern about the humanitar-
ian aspect of the crisis, a concern which she clearly expressed at the very beginning
of her statement as she called on the EU to have more “concern for the humans
fleeing across the sea.” The concern was also clear in her reaction to proposals
made by the Commissioner. The MEP emphasized the need to act in such a way
that the refugees’ human rights are protected. She called on the EU authorities to
stop turning away boats full of refugees and to check the situation of each refugee
instead, and she stressed that the EU must not ‘fortify’ its borders. Furthermore,
she called on her fellow MEPs to set the requirements necessary for Frontex ‘to
act in accordance with human rights’. The concern about the people in Tunisia
seemed to be also underlying Ms. Lochbihler’s agreement with the commissioner’s
proposal to assist Tunisia in its transition to democracy. The MEP presented the
financial assistance proposed as the means for Tunisian people to have a decent
life in their own country. Ms. Lochbihler also emphasized the need to act in ac-
cordance with the principle of EU solidarity. She expressed regret for the lack of
solidarity and unwillingness of some member states to share the responsibility and
called on member states in the center and north of Europe to take refugees.
Following Ms. Lochbihler, Rui Tavares, a Portuguese MEP spoke on behalf of
the Confederal Group of the European United Left — Nordic Green Left (GUE/
NGL Group), a small (34 MEPs) left-wing Group. Like in Ms. Lochbihler’s contri-
bution, the humanitarian aspect of the crisis and the interest in the political agen-
da of the EU were central in Mr. Tavares’ contribution. The speaker emphasized
that sending Frontex missions would not solve the problem. He highlighted the
humanitarian implications of sending immigrants back to Tunisia and explained
that immigrants might end up in Tunisian jails if they were sent back because “in
Tunisia, under President Ben Ali, there was a law, which has still not been repealed,
which made emigration a crime.” He called on the EU to guarantee that “people
will not be returned only to end up in a Tunisian prison” and to try to “persuade
the new government to repeal this law.” The MEP also criticized the EU immigra-
tion policy, which he thought was ‘dependent’ on Mr. Gaddafi, the dictator, who
was at the time still ruling Libya. According to Mr. Tavares, the EU needed to
revise its immigration policy in order to deal with the risk of a big refugee crisis.
56 Dima Mohammed
The last MEP speaking on behalf of a Group was Fiorello Provera, from
Italy, representing the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group (EFD Group),
the small right-wing Eurosceptic Group (27 MEPs). The speaker expressed his
Group’s commitment to the assistance of Italy as well as the assistance of Tunisia.
Unlike the previous Italian MEP, Mr. Rinaldi who spoke on behalf of the ALDE
Group and who was very critical of the Italian authorities, Mr. Provera called on
the Commission to take all the measures requested by the Italian government.
Such a position did not come as a surprise. Mr. Provera is a member of Northern
League, which is the same Italian national political party to which the Italian min-
ister of the Interior, Roberto Maroni, belongs. Moreover, similar to the speakers
before him, he emphasized that it was necessary for Europe to provide an im-
mediate political response to the situation. According to him, only by addressing
the structural causes of the revolutions in the Maghreb does it become possible to
achieve “economic development, jobs, stability and security for all.”
In the next section, I shall reconstruct the standpoints and arguments ad-
vanced by the Commissioner and the six MEPs representing Groups. The recon-
struction will be the basis for the analysis of the different institutional goals that
the MEPs pursue and the way in which these goals shape the argumentative dis-
course produced.
3. The standpoints and the arguments advanced
In her statement, the Commissioner defended three main standpoints. First, she
argued that the Commission is fulfilling its duties in tackling the critical situation in
Lampedusa (standpoint C1). The standpoint, which was to be expected from the
Commissioner given the supervisory power that the Parliament can exercise over
the Commission, remained implicit, but was supported by two explicit arguments:
(C1) (The Commission is fulfilling its duties in tackling the critical situation in
Lampedusa)
C1.1a The Commission has already taken measures
C1.1b The Commission is willing to take further measures
Second, the Commissioner argued that all member states must contribute to the
assistance of Italy (standpoint C2), and that the EU must support political and eco-
nomic development in Tunisia (standpoint C3). These standpoints, in which she
emphasized the importance of the further measures the Commission is willing to
take, were to be expected given the occasion of the debate, namely in response to a
critical situation that required measures to be taken. The Commissioner advanced
two main arguments in support of the call on all member states to support Italy:
C2 All Member states must contribute to the assistance of Italy

C2.1a The EU common response should be based on the principle of EU solidar-
ity between Member States
C2.1b Support for Italy will not compete with Members states’ contribution to
the operation that we now have at the Greek land border, which is, of
course, also a priority
Three main arguments were advanced in support of the proposal to assist Tunisia:
C3 The EU must support political and economic development in Tunisia
C3.1 Lady Ashton expressed solidarity with Tunisia and its democratic transi-
tion when she visited the Tunisian authorities in Tunis yesterday and of-
fered Tunisian authorities political and financial support
C3.2 The EU must develop a medium-term strategy to address migration flows
in which effective border management is combined with a strategy for
supporting democratic transition and economic development in Tunisia
C3.3 The current situation in Lampedusa should not undermine our intention
to offer assistance and support to the popular revolution in Tunisia
C3.3.1 This popular revolution can bring many positive developments to Tunisia
and to the EU
The concrete measures proposed as part of the assistance for Italy, such as the
quick mobilization of resources from EU funds, were not presented by the
Commissioner as proposals but, as details of a more general proposal of providing
assistance to Italy.
The Commissioner advanced arguments only in support of the general propos-
al leaving the concrete measures unjustified. One can consider the standpoint ad-
vocating the main proposal to assist Italy, i.e. standpoint C2, as a general argument
that justifies the concrete measures proposed. For example, the Commissioner can
be viewed to argue that there is a need for a quick mobilization of resources from EU
funds to assist Italy because member states must contribute to the assistance of Italy.
The argument is general in the sense that it expresses a general proposal of which
the measure proposed is a detail rather than a particular argument that justifies
why the particular measure should be adopted. Specific arguments in support of
the particular measures remain lacking. Advancing arguments only in support of
the general proposal might create the impression that the concrete measures do
not need justification. Not advancing arguments in support of the measures can
be regarded as an attempt on behalf of the Commissioner to avoid making an issue
out of the measures she proposes. Similar attempts have been described by Craig
and Tracy (2005: 13) who examined school board-meetings and reported that par-
ticipants in such meetings tended to present the issues they were discussing as
58 Dima Mohammed
“not matters of controversy but rather obvious problems that require specific solu-
tions.” However, in the debate analyzed here, the Commissioner’s attempt was not
successful. As the analysis below shall show, the measures she proposed were often
criticized by MEPs and became a clear object of contention.
In the first reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Mr. Busuttil expressed
seven standpoints. First he argued that there is need to act urgently (standpoint B1):
B1 There is need to act urgently
B1.1 The humanitarian emergency in Italy requires urgent action
As he announced the details of his proposal for urgent action, Mr. Busuttil ex-
pressed five other standpoints. In each of these standpoints, he called for a step
that needed to be taken in response to the critical situation in Lampedusa:
B2 There is a need for veritable Marshall Plan for Tunisia and Egypt in ex-
change for full cooperation in blocking illegal immigration
B3 There is need for the urgent deployment of a Frontex rapid intervention
mission
B3.1 Sending Frontex experts, which is what the Commissioner is offering, is
not enough
B4 There is a need for tangible help for Italy with the reception of the immi-
grants
B4.1 The new European Asylum Support Office, whose expertise the
Commissioner is offering, is not yet operating
B5 There is a need for the immediate repatriation of people who did not qual-
ify for international protection
B6 The EU response should be based on the principle of solidarity and on the
just sharing of responsibility
B6.1 Article 80 in the Treaty clearly states that our immigration policy should be
based on the principle of solidarity and on the just sharing of responsibility
Except for standpoint B6, the standpoints expressed were not supported by any
specific arguments that justify why the particular measure proposed is good for
tackling the situation. The arguments that support standpoint B3 and standpoint
B4 are just criticism of the measure proposed by the Commissioner but offer no
support for the alternative advocated in the standpoints. However, just like in the
case of the Commissioner, one of the standpoints advanced by the MEP, namely
standpoint B1, there is need to act urgently, can be considered a general argument
that is advanced in support of these standpoints. In fact, as the analysis below will
show, specific arguments that justify why certain measures are good for tackling
the situation remain lacking in the contributions of the other MEPs as well.
In addition to the standpoints explicitly expressed by the MEP, Mr. Busuttil

could be seen to express an implicit standpoint regarding the performance of the
Commission. The MEP’s remark that “it is about time that the Commission imple-
mented” article 80 of the Treaty could be understood as an argument in support
of a standpoint critical of the Commission. The MEP could be seen to argue that
(B7) (The Commission is not fulfilling its duties)
B7.1 The Commission has not yet implemented article 80 of the Treaty
B7.2 The Commissioner is offering inefficient measures
B7.2.1a Sending Frontex experts, which is what the Commissioner is offering, is
not enough
B7.2.1b The new European Asylum Support Office, whose expertise the
Commissioner is offering, is not yet operating
The MEP left his seventh standpoint unexpressed, just like the Commissioner did
with her standpoint in which she defended the performance of the Commission
(Commissioner’s standpoint C1) and to which the MEP could be seen to respond.
In the second reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Mr. López Aguilar
expressed three main standpoints. In the first, he emphasized that the crisis ought
to be considered a European one:
LA1 This is not an issue for Italy in Lampedusa, or for Malta, Greece or Spain
LA1.1 Articles 67, 77, 78 and 80 from the Lisbon Treaty state that shared solidar-
ity and responsibility make this challenge a European one
In the second and third standpoints, he addressed the crisis at the level of political
decision making. He recommended policies that the EU needs to take in response
to the situation. He recommended that
LA2 Necessary resources need to be invested in development cooperation and
in assisting the establishment and consolidation of democracy in Tunisia
And that
LA3 Necessary resources also need to be invested in assisting EU Member
States with the challenge of primary care in response to immigration and
with the challenge of managing the joint borders
No explicit arguments were advanced in support of these two standpoints.
However, standpoint LA1 could be seen as an argument for standpoint LA3.
In the third reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Mr. Rinaldi expressed
two main standpoints: Italy is not acting in line with the project of Europe (stand-
point R1), and the EU’s response to immigration problems needs democracy, develop-
ment, respect for international law, European solidarity, and abandoning prejudicial
60 Dima Mohammed
rhetoric (standpoint R2). The MEP devoted almost all of his speech for the defense
of the first standpoint. He advanced four main arguments (R1.1–R1.4):
R1 Italy is not acting in line with the project of Europe
R1.1 The Italian authorities employ prejudicial rhetoric
R1.1.1 The Italian authorities have the habit of blaming Europe when it suits, only
to ignore it irritably when Brussels disapproves of Italian policies
R1.1.1.1a The Italian Foreign Minister made a statement in which he said that
Syria ‘is a stable country in which the population’s desire for modern-
ization has been satisfied’
R1.1.1.1b The Italian Interior Minister made a statement in which he accused
the EU of abandoning Italy
R1.1.1.1c Italy is refusing EUR 10 million of aid offered to the Italian Government
by the European Fund for Refugees
R1.1.2. Italian officials make statements in which they shift their responsibilities
to Europe
R1.2 Italy has an agreement on sea repatriations that violate humanitarian law
R1.3 Italy lines the pockets of African dictators
R1.3.1 Italy continues to lavish billions on the Libya of Mr. Gaddafi
R1.4 Italy does not comply with Europe’s transparent rules for spending money
R1.4.1 Italy spends money in line with the in-house criteria of the Italian Civil
Protection Agency
In defense of his second standpoint, the MEP merely presented the five compo-
nents he called for as necessary for slowing down immigration in a sustainable and
purposeful way:
R2 The EU’s response to immigration problems needs democracy, develop-
ment, respect for international law, European solidarity, and abandoning
prejudicial rhetoric
R2.1 Democracy, development, respect for international law, European solidar-
ity and, abandoning prejudicial rhetoric are necessary for slowing down
immigration in a sustainable and purposeful way
By advancing this standpoint, the MEP could be regarded to agree with the com-
missioner’s second and third standpoints, namely that all Member states must con-
tribute to the assistance of Italy and that the EU must support political and economic
development in Tunisia.
In the fourth reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Ms. Lochbihler ad-
vanced four main standpoints. She argued that:
L1 The EU must not allow people to be turned away and its borders to be
fortified
L1.1 The EU needs to guarantee that the refugees’ human rights are protected
L1.1.1 The EU needs to take its principles concerning the protection of refugees
seriously
and that
L2 The EU must find a binding solution which requires states in the center
and the north of Europe to take in refugees
L2.1 It is unacceptable that the countries bordering on the Mediterranean are
left on their own to cope with an unforeseen influx of refugees
and that
L3 The EU must support trade with Tunisia and subsidies for projects there
L3.1a The EU must make it possible for Tunisia to achieve rapid and positive
economic development
L3.1b Rapid and positive economic development is one of the main require-
ments of the democratic transformation of Tunisia
L3.1b.1 Rapid and positive economic development helps Tunisians become more
confident of having a chance of earning a decent living in their own country
and finally, that
L4 The new mandate for Frontex must include specific requirements for the
agency to act in accordance with human rights
L4.1 Frontex needs to focus its activities on protecting and rescuing refugees
In the fifth reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Mr. Tavares argued in favor
of two main standpoints. First, he argued that
T1 It is necessary to persuade the new Tunisian government to repeal the law
which makes emigration a crime
T1.1a The issue is not just an issue of managing external borders
T1.1b It is necessary to guarantee that these people will not be returned only to
end up in a Tunisian prison
Second, he argued that
(T2) (There is a need to revise the EU immigration policy)
T2.1 The EU immigration policy is unrealistic
T2.1.1a The EU immigration policy is dependent on Mr. Gaddafi
T2.1.1b If Gaddafi falls, the EU is left completely without a buffer for immigrants
from North and sub-Saharan Africa
T2.1.2 The EU immigration policy is unable to deal with the possible refugee
crisis awaiting the EU
62 Dima Mohammed
The MEP advanced two more standpoints in which he called for revising particu-
lar aspects of the EU immigration policy. He asserted that the EU must revise the
co-decision procedure with regard to resettlement (standpoint T3) and that the EU
must revise its policies on shared relocation of asylum seekers within the countries of
the European Union (standpoint T4). These concrete standpoints were left without
supporting arguments. However, one may take standpoint T2 to be a general argu-
ment in defense of these standpoints.
In the sixth reaction to the Commissioner’s statement, Mr. Provera advanced
five standpoints. In the first four standpoints, he called on the Commission to ‘pro-
vide the urgent interventions’ requested by the Italian Government. He claimed
that it is necessary that Frontex is transformed from a coordination agency to an
operative structure with its own people and resources (standpoint P1); that it is nec-
essary to implement the principle of burden sharing (standpoint P2); that it is neces-
sary to use Europol for investigations on possible terrorist infiltrations and criminal
organization of the traffic in human beings (standpoint P3) and that it is necessary
to allocate resources to deal with the emergency (standpoint P4). No arguments
were advanced in support of these standpoints. Mr. Provera also claimed that the
EU must address the lack of the institutional tools that characterize true democracy
and give the people a voice in Maghreb (standpoint P5). He provided two argu-
ments in support of this standpoint. He argued that:
P5 The EU must address the lack of the institutional tools that characterize
true democracy and give the people a voice in Maghreb
P5.1a The structural causes of the revolutions in the Maghreb are not addressed
by the urgent interventions requested by Italy
P5.1a.1 The urgent interventions requested by Italy do not address the lack of gen-
uine political parties, trade unions and associations, a free press, and lack
of respect for human rights
P5.1b Without addressing these causes there cannot be economic development,
jobs, stability, and security for all
4. The goals pursued by the MEPs
The MEPs’ standpoints and arguments, reconstructed above, reflect the MEPs’
interest in several institutional concerns. Overall, one can identify seven institu-
tional goals, which were recurrently pursued by the MEPs.11 First, MEPs were out
11. These goals can be attributed to the MEPs on the basis of an analysis of the discourse con-
ducted against background knowledge of the institutional context in which the discourse occurs.
The inferences about goals were made on the basis of what Craig (1986: 268–271) distinguishes
to influence (the Commission regarding) the measures that need to be taken in re-
sponse to the critical situation in Lampedusa. Second, they were out to scrutinize
the performance of the executive. Third, they attempted to influence EU policy-
making, in relation to both immigration and foreign relations policy. Fourth, they
also tried to influence the performance of the executive. Fifth, they were out to
promote the interests of their own political Parties or Groups. Sixth, they tried to
promote national interests, i.e. the interests of the citizens of one’s own member
state and seventh, they were also sometimes out to promote the interests of the
citizens of the EU as a whole.
Mr. Busuttil was clearly out to influence the measures to be taken in response
to the critical situation in Lampedusa: he proposed several measures (in B2, B3, B4
and B5) and reacted to some of the measures proposed by the Commissioner. The
MEP was also out to exercise the power he acquired as an MEP to supervise the
Commission. His criticism of some of the measures proposed by the Commission
as insufficient (in B3.1 and B4.1) can be seen as a way of scrutinizing the perfor-
mance of the Commission. Exercising supervision over the performance of the
Commission was especially clear when the MEP criticized the Commission for
not implementing article 80 of the Treaty (in B7.1). In exercising his supervisory
power, Mr. Busuttil represented the interests of his Group. The MEP from the EPP
Group emphasized that assistance to Tunisia should be provided in return of the
Tunisian collaboration in preventing illegal immigration to Europe, which is in line
with his Group’s position in favor of tough EU immigration policy. Furthermore,
the Maltese MEP was also promoting national interests. Emphasizing responsibil-
ity sharing in immigration is certainly in the interest of Malta, whose location puts
it under the same risk of being the target of illegal immigrants as Lampedusa.
By focusing on the level of political decision making in response to the crisis,
Mr. López Aguilar tried to influence the EU policy-making rather than merely
influencing the way in which EU policies are implemented, i.e. measure-taking.
In principle, policy making is not one of the official powers of the European
Parliament.12 Within the EU structure, policy making is mainly the task of the
European Council and the Commission. The European Parliament is, however,
as ‘functional relationship between discourse and the goal’, namely the relationship between the
standpoints and the goals, as well as on ‘the conventional appropriateness of the goal’, derived
from the rules and conventions of debates about statements in the European Parliament.
12. Saab (2011: 67–69) lists four main powers, or functions, for the European Parliament. In ad-
dition to its legislative function, Parliament plays a role in the supervision of the Commission,
approving the budget and to a limited extent in shaping EU foreign relations. Other literature
on the European Parliament lists more or less the same powers or functions (Corbett et al. 2011;
Europa 2011b; Hix et al. 2007: 12–32).
64 Dima Mohammed
granted the power to influence the policy making of the EU, mainly through MEPs’
work in the different parliamentary standing committees and by means of regular
consultation meetings in which the Commission seeks the EP’s opinion concern-
ing proposed EU policies. However, MEPs are constantly trying to acquire more
policy making power, and they are managing to do so. MEPs’ ability to influence
the policy making of the EU has been increasing with every new European Treaty
(Hix et al. 2007; Corbett et al. 2011). Extending the discussion in such a debate to
include the discussion of EU policies in the relevant field (in LA1, LA2 and LA3)
could be seen as an attempt from MEPs to exercise the power that they aspire to.
Finally, just like his Maltese fellow MEP, Mr. López Aguilar was promoting na-
tional interests. Emphasizing that the challenge to manage joint borders should
be considered as a joint EU challenge is obviously in the interest of Spain, whose
location has repeatedly made it the target of illegal immigrants.
The focus on criticizing Italian authorities in the contribution of Mr. Rinaldi,
the MEP from Italy, is interesting. The criticism (in R1) may not have been imme-
diately relevant for the debate at issue, namely the immediate measures to address
the migratory crisis in Lampedusa. However, the criticism reflected an important
concern that MEPs usually have, namely a concern in what happens in the po-
litical scene in their home countries. As it has repeatedly been observed in stud-
ies of debates in the European Parliament (e.g. van Eemeren and Garssen 2010),
MEPs are often more interested in the public in their home countries than in the
European public in general. Even though this interest may seem to be at odds with
the ‘project of Europe’, it is certainly in line with the national nature of European
Parliamentary elections. For MEPs, who are elected at a national level, it cannot but
be expected that they care to address the interests of those voters who elect them
in their home countries. This is not to claim that the criticism of Italian authorities
which Mr. Rinaldi advanced was a completely local issue. In this case, the MEP
presented the actions criticized as having implications that constitute obstacles to
the European project. In other words, the MEP attempted to simultaneously fulfill
two goals that are associated with the role of the MEP and which often seem to
be contradictory: to address issues that are crucial for his public of voters and to
further the interests of citizens of the European Union in general (in R2.1). What
is also interesting in the MEP’s contribution is that the criticism he advanced was
a manifestation of the ideological difference between the MEP’s political party at
the national level and his Group at the European level on the one hand and the
national parties in government in Italy, on the other hand. Mr. Rinaldi did not only
attempt to address the interests of his immediate public of voters in Italy but also
did so in a way that furthered the interests of his political party.
Furthermore, the criticism advanced by Mr. Rinaldi could be viewed as an
attempt to influence the Commission. Being the EU executive institution, the
Commission has the power to see to it that member states act in accordance with
the obligations assigned to them by the EU Treaties (Saab 2011: 53). As mentioned
earlier, the European Parliament is expected to supervise the Commission. The
criticism advanced by Mr. Rinaldi could be seen as part of this supervisory func-
tion. By means of the criticism, Mr. Rinaldi might have been aiming at directing
the Commission towards taking some measures to criticize Italian authorities. The
latter can work to the advantage of Mr. Rinaldi’s national party in its competition
with its rivals who are in government there.
Ms. Lochbihler’s emphasis of the humanitarian aspect of the crisis (in L1 and
L4) may be viewed as an expression of the ideology of her Group, the Greens/ALE
Group, and an attempt to promote the interest of that Group. The Group defines
itself as “a European Parliamentary Group made up of Greens and representatives
of stateless nations and disadvantaged minorities” and lists building “a society re-
spectful of fundamental human rights and environmental justice” on the top of its
project list (The Greens | European Free Alliance 2011). In addition to the promo-
tion of the Group’s ideology, Ms. Lochbihler’s speech contributed to the MEPs’
pursuit of more political power. By bringing the mandate granted to Frontex by
the European Parliament into the discussion (in L4), she extended the discussion
to include not just the measures taken by the EU but also the political agenda
underlying these measures. In this sense, she was pursuing the same goal that was
pursued by the S&D speaker, Mr. López Aguilar, earlier.
Mr. Tavares’ call on the EU to try to persuade the new Tunisian government to
repeal the law that makes emigration a crime (in T1) could be seen as an attempt
to influence EU external relations, which is a political power that is more and more
often exercised by MEPs. In fact, even the call for revising the EU immigration
policy (in T2) and the criticism advanced by Mr. Tavares in relation to it, which
is a clear attempt on the side of the MEP to influence the setting of EU political
agenda concerning immigration, can also be viewed as an attempt to influence the
EU external relations, in this case, the relationship between the EU and Libya’s
ruler at that time, Muammar Gaddafi. The MEP from the left-wing Group con-
nects the measures needed to address the immigration crisis to EU foreign policy.
Such a link, which is typically drawn by leftist MEPs, could also be seen as a way
of presenting the discussion of EU foreign affairs to be relevant to the subject of
the debate, namely the measure needed in response to the exceptional migration
flow in Lampedusa.
By urging the Commission to take the steps called for by the Italian authori-
ties (in P1, P2, P3 and P4), Mr. Provera did not only try to influence the EU im-
migration policy-making and the measures to be taken. As he was supporting the
requests presented to the Commission by his national government, the MEP was
also promoting the interests of this government as well as those of his national
66 Dima Mohammed
political party which was in government in his home country. His stressing of the
need to address the structural causes of the revolutions in the Maghreb (in P5)
could be viewed as an attempt of the MEP to influence the foreign policy making
of the EU.
The goals identified above belong to three different types of goals. First, there
is the occasion-related goal of influencing (the Commission regarding) the mea-
sures that need to be taken in response to the critical situation in Lampedusa. This
goal is derived from the occasion of the debate, namely the need to take mea-
sures that respond to the migratory crisis in the south of Europe. Second, there
are the powers-related goals, which are goals that are derived from the powers and
functions of the European Parliament. To this type belong three goals: the goal of
scrutinizing the performance of the Commission, the goal of influencing the EU
policy-making and the goal of influencing the performance of the executive in
general.13 Third, there are the identity-related goals, which are those goals that can
be associated with the different identities MEPs assume in Parliament.14 Under
this type fall the three last goals: the goal of promoting the interests of one’s own
political Party or Group, the goal of promoting national interests, i.e. the interests
of the citizens of one’s own member state and the goal of promoting the interests
of the EU citizens. As explained earlier, MEPs are elected by voters in their own
member states but they are expected to represent the European citizens in the
whole European Union. Moreover, their political affiliation in the EP is organized
in Political Groups at the European level.
5. Theoretical implications
The pursuit of the different goals shaped the argumentative discourse in the de-
bate in different ways. The pursuit of the occasion-related goal and of the powers-
related goals gave rise to issues that were discussed by means of the standpoints
and arguments. The pursuit of the identity-related goals guided the MEPs’ choices
13. The powers-related goal of influencing the performance of the executive can be viewed as a
general goal under which the occasion-related goal falls. It is certainly not unexpected that the
occasion-relation goal is a specification of one of the powers-related goals.
14. In their studies of parliamentary discourse, van Dijk (2010) and Ilie (2010) highlight the
complex identity of parliamentarians and show how identity shapes the discourse and is at the
same time shaped by it. Van Dijk examines how the ‘multiple political identities’ of MPs in
the British and Spanish parliaments are formulated in the MP’s arguments. Ilie examines how
MPs in the British Parliament construct and co-construct their ‘multi-layered identities’ and
describes how MPs enact different aspects of these identities as they address different audiences.
and formulations of the standpoints they advanced and the starting points and
arguments they relied on as they argued.
In the debate, the MEPs’ standpoints and arguments addressed five main is-
sues. The issues discussed included: (i) the measures to be taken in response to the
migratory crisis in Lampedusa, (ii) the EU immigration policy that underlies the
measures proposed, (iii) the EU foreign relations policy as well as (iv) the perfor-
mance of the Commission and (v) the performance of the Italian Government.15
An issue, here, is understood in line with Goodwin (2002: 86) as “a more or less
determinate object of contention that is, under circumstances, worth arguing
about.” The issues in the debate are more on the side of the less determinate, in the
sense that they are general subjects under which fall more specific standpoints. But
they are all controversial and therefore worth arguing about. Some issues were dis-
cussed elaborately, in the sense that standpoints were supported by arguments as
it was in case with the issue of the EU immigration policy, while other issues were
not, for example the issue of the measures to be taken, in which the discussants
did not always advance arguments in support of their standpoints. Furthermore,
some issues were addressed by all participants, for example, the EU immigration
policy, while other issues were addressed only by one participant, for example, the
performance of the Italian Government, which was addressed only in the speech
of Mr. Rinaldi.
All of the issues addressed by the MEPs are expected to arise in view of the oc-
casion of the debate as well as the powers of the European Parliament. The issue of
the performance of the Commission is expected to arise as a result of the supervi-
sory power that the Parliament has over the Commission. The issue of the concrete
measure to be taken is expected to arise as a result of the occasion of the debate,
as well as the responsibility of the Commission to turn EU policies into measures
and the supervisory power the Parliament has over the Commission. The issue of
EU immigration policy in general is also expected. Even though debates such as
the one analyzed here are not venues for policy making, the measures that need to
be taken in response to a migratory crisis cannot be discussed independent of the
EU immigration policies. In the case of the debate at issue, it also seemed that the
measures could not be discussed independent of the EU foreign relations policy
either. The issue of the performance of the Italian Government is not unexpected
given the important role of the Italian authorities in tackling the critical situation
in Lampedusa, the situation that gave rise to the debate.
15. All but the fifth issue were already addressed by the Commissioner in her statement.
68 Dima Mohammed
The most prominent issue in the MEPs’ contributions was the issue of the EU
immigration policies. This issue was addressed by all of the MEPs.16 The discus-
sions related to this issue were sometimes general discussions about whether or
not EU immigration policies are satisfactory (e.g. Mr. Tavares’ standpoint T2, in
which he argued that there is a need to revise the EU immigration policy), and other
times specific discussions about whether a certain policy should be adopted or
not (e.g. Mr. López Aguilar’s standpoint LA3, in which he argued that necessary
resources need to be invested in assisting EU Member States with the challenge of
primary care in response to immigration and with the challenge of managing the
joint borders). By advancing standpoints related to the EU immigration policy,
MEPs were aiming to influence the EU immigration policy setting. The interest
in the EU policy setting is also reflected in the standpoints that addressed the is-
sue of EU foreign relations policy. In discussing this issue, MEPs advanced stand-
points in which they promoted policies to govern EU relations with countries of
the Maghreb (e.g. Ms. Lochbihler’s standpoint L3, in which she argued that the EU
must support trade with Tunisia and subsidies for projects there).17 By advancing
such standpoints, the MEPs attempted to exercise more political power, aiming to
influence EU foreign policy making.
The issue of the measures to be adopted was addressed by advancing stand-
points in which concrete measures were promoted (e.g. Mr. Busuttil’s standpoint
B5, in which he argued that there is a need for the immediate repatriation of people
who did not qualify for international protection; Mr. Provera’s standpoint P3, in
which he argued that it is necessary to use Europol for investigations on possible
terrorist infiltrations and criminal organization of the traffic in human beings).18
By means of these standpoints, the MEPs were aiming to supervise the executive
by influencing the measures adopted by the Commission. The issue of the perfor-
mance of the Commission was addressed by Mr. Busuttil, in his standpoint B7 in
16. The issue of the EU immigration policy-making was addressed by Mr. Busuttil’s standpoint
B1 and B6, by Mr. López Aguilar’s standpoints LA1 and LA3, by Mr. Rinaldi’s standpoint R2,
by Ms. Lochbihler’s standpoints L1 and L4, by Mr. Tavares’ standpoints T2 and by Mr. Provera’s
standpoints P1, P2 and P4.
17. This issue of EU foreign policy-making was addressed by Mr. López Aguilar’s standpoint
LA2, Ms. Lochbihler’s standpoint L3, Mr. Tavares’ standpoint T1 and Mr. Provera’s standpoint
P5.
18. This issue of the measures to be taken was addressed by Mr. Busuttil in his standpoints B2,
B3, B4 and B5, by Ms. Lochbihler in her standpoint L2, by Mr. Tavares in his standpoints T3 and
T4 and Mr. Provera in his standpoint P2
which he argued that the Commission is not fulfilling its duties.19 The standpoint
reflected the MEP’s pursuit of exercising his supervisory power by scrutinizing
the performance of the Commission. Finally, the issue of the performance of the
Italian Government was addressed by Mr. Rinaldi’s standpoint R1, in which he
argued that Italy is not acting in line with the project of Europe. The criticism of
the Italian authorities, expressed by the MEP can be seen as an attempt to direct
the Commission towards exercising supervision over the performance of a na-
tional government. The power to supervise national governments is a power of
the Commission but is not a power of the Parliament. This might have been the
reason why Mr. Rinaldi presented his criticism of Italy in the context of the discus-
sion of the measures requested by the Italian authorities to handle the situation in
Lampedusa. The MEP argued that a change in the way the Italian authorities are
dealing with the EU is necessary for any measures to give positive results. In other
words, the discussion of the performance of the Italian authorities was presented
as subordinate to the discussion of the measures that are necessary in response to
the current crisis.
The occasion-related goal of influencing the measures that need to be taken
in response to the critical situation in Lampedusa gave rise to the standpoints that
addressed the issue of the measures to be taken in response to the critical situa-
tion in Lampedusa as well as the standpoint that addressed the issue of the per-
formance of the Italian Government. The powers-related goal of scrutinizing the
performance of the executive gave rise to standpoints that addressed the issue of
the performance of the Commission. The powers-related goal of influencing EU
policy-making gave rise to standpoints that addressed the issue of EU immigra-
tion and foreign relations policy-making.
Each of the standpoints expressed can be considered a manifestation of an ini-
tial disagreement. Sometimes, the initial disagreement was real, in the sense that
there were MEPs who disagreed with the standpoint, and other times the initial
disagreement was only anticipated by the MEP. The standpoints expressed in rela-
tion to a certain issue were a manifestation of an initial disagreement concerning
that issue. The multiple goals pursued by the MEPs gave rise to multiple initial
disagreements which can be considered typical of the type of debate examined,
since they are derived from the power of the Parliament and the occasion of the
debate. The multiple disagreements were discussed concurrently. The standpoints
advanced in relation to one issue were sometimes supported by arguments that
19. Mr. Busuttil addressed the performance of the Commission also in his defense of standpoints
B2 and B3, in which he proposed alternatives to the measures proposed by the Commissioner.
In his defense, the MEP criticized the proposals of the Commissioner as insufficient (in B3.1
and B4.1).
70 Dima Mohammed
contributed to the defense of another standpoint, expressed in relation to an-

other issue, as well. For example, Mr. Busuttil’s argument that the new European
Asylum Support Office is not yet operating was an argument that supported both
the standpoint B4, namely that there is a need for tangible help for Italy with the
reception of the immigrants, and the standpoint B7, namely that the Commission
is not fulfilling its duties. The discussion concerning the measures that need to be
taken runs concurrently/simultaneously with the discussion concerning the per-
formance of the Commission.
The pursuit of the identity-related goals guided the MEPs in choosing the par-
ticular standpoints they advanced in the discussion of a certain issue as well as the
arguments they provided in support of the standpoint and the starting points they
assumed in their defense. For example, the goal of promoting the interests of one’s
national political party guided Mr. Provera in choosing to advance standpoints
that call for providing the interventions requested by the Italian Government
(standpoints P1, P2, P3 and P4). Mr. Provera is a member of the Italian party in
government, the North League. Of all the possible standpoints which he could
have advanced to address the issue of the measures to be taken, he has chosen to
advance those standpoints that promote the interests of the Italian Government
and his Party consequently. Similarly, the goal of promoting the interests of the
citizens of one’s own member state gave rise to the standpoint that migratory
flows are an issue for the European institutions and not an issue only for Italy. The
standpoint was used by Mr. Busuttil from Malta, who argued that the EU response
should be based on the principle of solidarity and on the just sharing of responsibil-
ity (standpoint B6), as well as by Mr. López Aguilar from Spain, who argued that
this is not an issue for Italy in Lampedusa, or for Malta, Greece or Spain (standpoint
LA1). The choice of the standpoint itself, in the case of the Maltese MEP, and of
its formulation as well, in the case of the Spanish MEP, appeal to the MEPs’ vot-
ers in their member states and promote their national interests. Interestingly, the
standpoint about burden-sharing among the member states was also advanced
by MEPs who were not from countries under the direct risk of illegal immigra-
tion. For example, Ms. Lochbihler, from Germany, argued that the EU must find a
binding solution which requires states in the center and the north of Europe to take
in refugees (standpoint L2). In this case, the standpoint can be rather associated
with the goal of promoting the interests of the citizens of the EU as a whole. When
advanced by MEPs from countries under the direct risk of illegal immigration, the
standpoint was usually supported by an argument that invoked articles from the
Lisbon Treaty. The choice of the argument is particularly opportune, as it allows
the MEPs to promote national interests by means of an argument that is meant to
promote European interests in general.
6. Conclusion
In this chapter, I aimed at highlighting the multi-purposive nature of European

Parliamentary debates. As an example, I have analyzed a plenary debate on immi-
gration. The analysis showed that, in this debate, MEPs were out to achieve differ-
ent types of institutional goals, all of which can be considered typical of this type
of European Parliamentary debate. The MEPs were out to influence the measures
that were to be taken by the Commission, which is a goal that can be associated
with the type and occasion of the debate. The MEPs also attempted to achieve
goals that were related to the powers assigned to them in their capacities as mem-
bers of the European Parliament. They sought to scrutinize the performance of
the executive, to influence the work of the Commission and to contribute to EU
policy-making. Furthermore, MEPs pursued goals that could be associated with
the different identities they assume in the Parliament. Of these goals, the goal of
promoting the interests of one’s own political Party or Group, as well the interests
of the citizens of one’s own member state were the most prominent.
The pursuit of the different goals shaped the argumentative discourse in
the debate in different ways. The pursuit of the occasion-related goal and of the
powers-related goals gave rise to several issues. In this sense, the goals shaped the
initial disagreement that gives rise to argumentation in this type of debate. The
different issues that arose were discussed in, what can from an analytic perspec-
tive, be described as multiple discussions running simultaneously. The discussion
about the measures that needed to be taken in response to the migratory crisis ran
simultaneously with a discussion about the performance of the Commission in
tackling the high influx of refugees and a discussion about the EU political agenda
in general. The pursuit of the identity-related goals guided the MEPs’ choices and
formulations of the standpoints they advanced and the starting points and argu-
ments they relied on as they argued in each of the discussions. As the different
discussions ran simultaneously, the statements of the MEPs contributed to them
at the same time.
There is certainly need for further analysis of the ways in which the pursuit
of different institutional goals shapes the discourse. Further analysis is needed in
two directions. First, the findings of the current analysis can be refined by means
of an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the different goals identified affect
the strategic maneuvering of MEPs. The analysis would examine in detail how
the MEPs choices of topics, style, and audience frame are influenced by the pur-
suit of the different institutional goals at issue. Second, the findings of the current
analysis can be verified against a larger corpus of similar debates in order to arrive
at more generalizable conclusions concerning the goals pursued and the ways in
which these goals are pursued. The generalizations would contribute towards a
72 Dima Mohammed
characterization of debates on statements in the European Parliament as an argu-

mentative activity type.
Furthermore, there is a need for an empirical as well as theoretical investiga-
tion of the simultaneous discussions identified in the analysis. How are the si-
multaneous discussions related? How do argumentative moves contribute to them
simultaneously? Are there patterns of strategic maneuvering designed particularly
to manage the simultaneous discussions? The examination is important. Not only
does the identification of the simultaneous discussions shed light on the strategic
nature of MEPs contributions. The identification also poses challenges for the as-
sessment of the rationality of such contributions.20 For example, sometimes what
is irrelevant to one of the discussion can be very relevant to another. Without an
adequate understanding of the way these simultaneous discussions are organized,
a coherent assessment of rationality remains difficult.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier
version of this chapter. She acknowledges the support of Portuguese Foundation for Science and
Technology (FCT) through grant Rationality of public political argument: The case of European
parliamentary debates (SFRH/BPD/76149/2011).
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The place of counter discourse
in two methods of public deliberation
The conférence de citoyens and the débat public
on nanotechnologies in France
Marianne Doury and Assimakis Tseronis

Laboratoire Communication et Politique, CNRS / University of Amsterdam
In this chapter, we examine two methods of public participation, namely consen-

sus conference (conférence de citoyens) and public hearing (débat public). While
both methods are used in order to involve the public in decision making about
science and technology policy, they differ in a number of aspects. Consensus
conference seeks the active participation of a selected group of citizens who are
expected to elaborate cooperatively a text of recommendations. Public hearing
seeks to inform the public and to collect as many reactions by it as possible. In
our analysis, we consider the characteristics of these two methods described in
the social and political sciences literature as institutional constraints that can play
a role in the production of argumentative discourse. We focus our study on the
discourse produced in two concrete instances of the application of these partici-
patory methods on the deliberation over the development of nanotechnology in
France. More specifically, we study the expression of counter discourse and seek to
describe how the participants in the two deliberation processes end up managing
the institutional constraints in order to have their criticisms expressed. In this way,
we propose a bottom-up approach to the theorization of the role that institutional
context plays in the practice of argumentation, and discuss the descriptive adequa-
cy of existing definitions of the deliberative genre within argumentation studies.
Keywords: conférence de citoyens, consensus conference, débat public, public

hearing, cahiers d’acteurs, argumentative activity types, counter discourse
1. Introduction
In the deliberative genre of classical rhetoric, the orator speaks before an assembly,
which decides on public affairs, seeking to defend a future action or to persuade
doi 10.1075/bct.76.04dou
76 Marianne Doury and Assimakis Tseronis
the assembly to decide on a law. In the ordinary sense of the word, deliberation
refers to a “long and careful consideration or discussion”1 usually with the aim of
reaching a decision on some measure or action. In the fields of political science
and communication, deliberation is considered to be the main tool for the citizens’
participation and engagement in what is termed collaborative governance, partici-
pative democracy or deliberative democracy (Einsiedel 2008).
Public input and participation in decision making processes through vari-
ous modes of deliberation practices are considered to be a necessary step in the
development and application of environmental, technological or other projects
and the assessment of risks related to them. Such a step is being increasingly re-
quired by recent legislation in a number of countries, such as the United States,
Great Britain and France (Nielsen et al. 2007; Einsiedel and Eastlick 2000; Joss and
Durant 1995). Hence a series of methods and tools have been developed in the
last few decades, formalized to a greater or lesser degree, which invite citizens to
take part in decision making processes regarding technology and science projects
and their environmental, societal, ethical and practical aspects (Rowe and Frewer
2000, 2005; Abelson et al. 2003).
Two of these methods, namely consensus conference and public hearing have
been applied recently to the deliberation concerning the development and appli-
cation of nanotechnology in France. As it has been observed (Macnaghten et al.
2005; Laurent 2009, 2010; Vlandas and Wullweber 2006), deliberation and public
engagement have been part and parcel of the development of this new field of
technoscience early on because of the diversity of sciences and disciplines involved
in nanotechnology and because of the number of applications thereof that can af-
fect all domains of private and public life at the national and international levels.
Within the field of argumentation studies, deliberative practices are studied
with an interest in what Frans van Eemeren (2011) calls the “contextualized con-
ditions of argumentation.” Argumentation scholars are thereby interested in de-
scribing, or even formalizing, the contextual constraints that can play a role in the
analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. To this endeavor, argumenta-
tion scholars who seek to refine their tools and their proposed accounts of contex-
tual constraints posed by various genres of communication, and by deliberation
methods in particular, can benefit greatly from the already existing literature on
public engagement and deliberative democracy produced within social sciences.
In this chapter, we seek to contribute to the discussion about the interplay of
contextual considerations and argumentation theory by comparing the insights
that can be drawn from the social sciences literature on methods of public delib-
eration (see literature cited above) with an argumentative analysis of the actual
1. Definition provided in the Oxford dictionary available online.

Counter discourse in two methods of public deliberation 77
realization of two related, but different deliberative methods. In doing so, we pro-
pose a bottom-up approach to the theorization of the role that institutional con-
text plays in the practice of argumentation. At the same time, we expect that the
close study of the argumentative discourse produced in the course of deliberative
practices can make salient for scholars in social and political sciences the differ-
ences in the discursive realization of otherwise related methods of deliberation.
As a case in point for the argumentative analysis of the discourse produced in the
two methods of deliberation under study, we focus on the expression of counter
discourse by the parties involved. This is because we take the expression and man-
agement of disagreement to play an essential role in the structuring of a delibera-
tion process and eventually to underlie democratic processes of participation. The
main questions we ask are the following:
How does a particular method of deliberation invite and/or constrain the expres-
sion of counter discourse?
How do the participants manage the expression of counter discourse in each of
these methods?
We answer the first question in Section 2, by studying the literature on deliberative
methods and by comparing the two methods under consideration as to the degree
in which counter discourse is encouraged in each. By taking the description of
the two deliberative methods provided in social and political sciences literature
as our starting point, we turn to the definitions of deliberation within argumenta-
tion studies in Section 3, in order to discuss their descriptive adequacy. Finally,
we answer the second question in Section 4, by analyzing some fragments of the
discourse produced in the course of the two deliberation processes organized in
France on the topic of nanotechnologies.
2. Two methods of public deliberation
In this section we present, in a contrastive manner, the two methods of public

deliberation under study, namely consensus conference and public hearing, fol-
lowing their description in the social and political sciences literature.2 Our aim is
2. In the French context, within which we are studying these two participation techniques, ref-
erence is made to conférence de citoyens for the former and débat public for the latter. While
there is a direct origin of the conférence de citoyens to be found in the Danish model of consensus
conference, to our knowledge, there is no direct equivalent as far as the ‘débat public’ à la fran-
çaise is concerned. In this chapter, we use the terms as they appear in literature on the subject
of public deliberation written in English. We therefore refer to consensus conference, for the
French conférence de citoyens, and to public hearing, which is the term used for describing a
to describe the institutional context and the procedure that is followed in each of
these practices so that we can understand the extent to which they may affect the
expression of counter discourse by the participants.
2.1 Consensus conference
Consensus conference is a public participation method that was developed by the

Danish Board of Technology in 1987 following the experience of medical confer-
ences in the US during the sixties (Andersen and Jaeger 1999). The consensus con-
ference process starts with two weekends of preparation, during which a citizens’
panel made up of fourteen to sixteen people follows training workshops animated
by experts; the group is managed by a professional facilitator. The third weekend
is mainly devoted to selecting the topics of the public conference, the experts to be
invited, and the questions to be asked. The public part of the process is a one-day
conference open to the public and the media, during which the experts present
their views and the members of the citizens’ panel ask them questions. The con-
ference is organized on the basis of round-tables on specific themes and topics
previously selected by the citizens’ panel. At the end of this one-day conference,
the members of the citizens’ panel retire and deliberate behind closed doors in or-
der to prepare the text of their recommendations. On a certain day following this
public conference, the citizens present to the public and the media their recom-
mendations during a press conference. Throughout the procedure of a consensus
conference, an advisory committee has the overall responsibility for making sure
that all rules of a democratic, fair, and transparent process have been followed.
In the Danish model, obtaining consensus concerning the conclusions and
recommendations in the final document prepared by the members of the citizens’
panel is necessary. In this way, chances are less that contestation arises against the
citizens’ recommendations when made public. Nevertheless, in the French version
of the consensus conference, there is no systematic search for consensus among
the citizens who participate in the panel, and divergent ideas and opinions may
also be expressed, hence the translation in French is ‘conférence de citoyens’ instead
of ‘conférence de consensus’ (Bourg and Boy 2005).
French consensus conference on nanotechnology

There have been four consensus conferences organized in France at a national
level since 1998. The consensus conference on nanotechnology we study here was
deliberative method for public involvement that is very close to the procedure followed in the
French débat public.
organized by the Ile-de-France region from October 2006 till January 2007. It was
the first consensus conference to be organized at a regional level.
The aim of this conference, as defined by its initiator, Marc Lipinski (vice-
president in charge of higher education, research, and innovation), was to develop
a long-lasting dialogue between science and society. Furthermore, it sought to en-
hance the citizens’ expertise on complex techno-scientific issues. The final aim
was to increase transparency in political decision making. While the citizens’ final
recommendations at the end of the process were not binding, it was expected that
elected representatives from the Ile-de-France region “commit themselves to tak-
ing these elements into account in the making of decisions concerning nanotech-
nologies in the future.”3
2.2 Public hearing
The French participatory method of public hearing originates in the type of public
consultation through ‘public inquiry’ (enquête publique) that has existed since the
middle of the nineteenth century (Revel et al. 2007). In France, this form of public
deliberation was established thanks to a law proposed by Minister Michel Barnier
in February 1995. Accordingly, the Commission Nationale du Débat Public
(CNDP) was created, an independent administrative authority whose role is to
guarantee the participation of the public in the elaboration of projects concerning
the management of territory or the provisioning of the public interest.
The CNDP has no right to take a position or to propose recommendations on
the project under deliberation. At the end of the procedure of the public hearing,
the CNDP has the responsibility of composing a synthesis of the opinions pre-
sented, which is submitted to the contracting authority (maître d’ouvrage) that is
expected to make official the decision taken on the subject upon consultation of
the documents produced during the deliberation procedure. The CNDP has been
organizing approximately five to six public hearings per year since 1995.
The public hearing on nanotechnology

From October 2009 to February 2010, seventeen public meetings were original-
ly planned in fifteen cities all over France on the topic of the development and
applications of nanotechnologies. These public hearings, unlike public hearings
previously organized, regarded rather general policy lines concerning decisions
to be taken as far as the positioning of the State and the society on the issue of
3. For the original text in French and related information visit: http://espaceprojets.iledefrance.
fr/jahia/Jahia/NanoCitoyens.
nanotechnologies is concerned. This was the first public hearing of its kind to ad-
dress the public at a national level (see Laurent 2010: 182, note 227).
Seven ministries in total composed the contracting authority of the project
(maître d’ouvrage). The goal of the public hearing was to shed light on the general
directions that the State should follow in the domains of research and innovation,
on the characterization of exposure and the evaluation of toxicity, on information
of workers and consumers, and on the organization of the control and governance
regarding nanotechnologies.
During each meeting that was open to the public and the media, representa-
tives of the maître d’ouvrage, of manufacturers, of scientists, and of associations
were invited to introduce the discussion. Questions by the public attending, as well
as by citizens connected through Internet, were addressed to the panelists. A great
number of documents were produced prior to the first meeting as well as through-
out. All the documents were used as they reached the public hearing committee in
order to feed the discussion and the question-answer session between the panelists
and the public during each meeting.
2.3 Public participation vs. public communication types of deliberation
According to Gene Rowe and Lynn Frewer (2000, 2005), of the two methods un-
der study here, consensus conference belongs to the ‘public participation’ type,
while public hearing belongs to the ‘public communication’ type. Following the
typology of methods of public participation and the criteria for their evaluation
proposed by these authors, the former type of deliberation seeks the active partici-
pation of (a representative sample of) the public, while the latter seeks to inform
the public, without however the public’s input playing any decisive role in the final
report. Nevertheless, when we look at the actual way in which these two methods
of public participation have been applied in the French context and on the subject
of nanotechnologies in particular, it becomes clear that the two models mix the
qualities and characteristics of the two types of public engagement methods de-
scribed in the literature.
Overall, in the consensus conference, the whole procedure is formalized to a
large extent. In particular, there is a clear distinction between the experts’ and the
citizens’ panel (a pre-condition for being selected to take part in the citizens’ panel
is to know as little as possible on the debated issue). The members of the citizens’
panel are there to ask questions and then write up a final recommendation, while
the experts are there to present their views briefly and to answer the citizens’ ques-
tions. Brice Laurent (2010: 175) remarks:
The consensus conference (in France and in the US) functions on the condition
that it can create “a good citizen”, who should be interested enough on the subject
to take part in it… but not to such an extent that he can express criticisms on the
way the conference is presented by the organizers, that he does not follow the
rules for the discussion procedure, or that he goes out of the limits of the subject
defined by the organizers. (Our translation)
On the other hand, in the public hearing, there is no formally identified group of
experts or citizens. The audience of the public hearing is heterogeneous and may
consist of people who are more or less experts on the subject while anyone may
ask questions to the panel of presenters invited each time. Contrary to a consen-
sus conference, in the public hearing, there is no prior training or selection of
the public — except for a certain self-selection, in the sense that only interested
citizens would assist in these sessions (whether they are interested in merely being
informed on the subject and have their opinion heard or in actively opposing to
the discussion).4 Laurent (2010) captures this difference between the two delibera-
tive processes by opposing the search for the ‘bon citoyen’ (good citizen), which
characterizes the consensus conference, to the search for the ‘bon public’ (right
public), which represents the public hearing.
When considering the production of argumentative discourse within each of
these two deliberative processes, one may wonder to what extent the expression
of counter discourse is constrained by the different characteristics of each, as de-
scribed in the relevant literature and as reflected in the goals set for the application
of each of them by the respective organizing bodies. The consensus conference is
described in the literature as a process which seeks to enable a group of citizens
with varied backgrounds to voice opinions and give recommendations on issues
of a scientific and of technical nature. One would therefore expect that it encour-
ages the expression of the participants’ personal opinions as well as the expression
of criticisms and counter arguments to the information presented to them. On
the other hand, in the process of a public hearing, the main goal is described as
informing citizens about the benefits and risks of a large technological or other
project. In this case, one would expect that the citizens and stakeholders would put
forward information seeking questions, inviting elaboration and explanation of
the various aspects of the project, rather than directly countering the information
presented and the opinions expressed.
4. This was particularly the case with a radical opposition group, called Pièces et Main d’Oeuvre,
whose members refused to participate officially in these public hearings but were present in the
hall, in which the meetings were held each time, in order to protest against the organization of
these public hearings. Their actions succeeded in disrupting the progress of a number of public
meetings and even led to the cancellation of one of them.
At the same time, the difference between the strict phasing that characterizes
consensus conference and the rather flexible format adopted in the procedure of
a public hearing ends up affecting the expression of counter discourse in a way
that counters the expectations created by the theoretical description of these two
methods of deliberation. The constant “modeling” by the facilitator throughout
the training sessions of the consensus conference, so that the members of the citi-
zens’ panel fit the “ideal citizen model,” cannot but weigh as an overall constraint
in the expression of counter discourse, despite the fact that consensus conference,
especially during the round tables of the actual public conference invites the ex-
pression of disagreement. In the public hearing, on the other hand, where there
is no distinction between a training phase and a debate phase of the process, the
public can interfere posing questions and making remarks as they see fit. Within
such a barely formalized setting, compared to the strict phasing of a consensus
conference, it is a matter of interpretation and of circumstances whether an actual
debate on expressed positions can arise. In fact, one could say that there is little
debate between the public and the various stakeholders in a public hearing, since
the interest lies mainly in having as many opinions heard as possible and in having
the experts and the stakeholders explain and inform the public (see also Rowe and
Frewer 2000).
It should also be noted that given the differences in the two methods of de-
liberation, the application of the one or the other on the topic of nanotechnology
suggests a differing view on what the subject under discussion is, what the stakes
are, and what the actual use of the results delivered by each of these two methods
will be. As a result, one can think that, for the organizing authorities and the policy
makers, nanotechnology deliberated through a consensus conference is treated
as a matter on which the public’s opinion is required (albeit from a very small se-
lected sample of citizens, after they have undergone sufficient training), while de-
liberated through public hearing, nanotechnology is merely a matter on which the
greater public needs to be informed and have the chance to ask questions about.
As the discussion of the data from these two deliberation processes will show,
the participants in either case end up forming, expressing, and justifying their
opinions, and, what is more, countering the opinions held by others or presented
as factual by the organizers and/or the experts. A closer argumentative analysis of
the discourse produced within each of these deliberative processes shows that the
actual realization and application of these methods on the deliberation regarding
a given topic, such as the development and applications of nanotechnology, can
differ from the theoretical and textbook description of these same methods.
3. Defining public deliberation within argumentation studies
So far, the discussion of the social and political sciences literature regarding two
of the methods of deliberation that we have chosen to study shows that there are
differences not only in the actual procedure but also in the general aims and ap-
plications of these methods. In this section, we turn to the field of argumentation
studies in order to compare the extent to which the definitions of deliberation pro-
posed in it can be considered as representative of the various methods of public de-
liberation described in the relevant literature and encountered in actual practice.
Within argumentation studies, there has been an interest in the conceptualiza-
tion of what van Eemeren (2010) calls “the macro-contextual dimension of argu-
mentation,” that is, the consideration of the broader institutional context within
which argumentation activity takes place (see also Goodnight 1982). A better un-
derstanding of this context can help argumentation scholars to study the effects of
various contextual characteristics on the analysis and evaluation of argumentation
as well as to examine the role that argumentation plays within that broader socio-
political and institutional context. Different approaches to the study of argumenta-
tion in context are available in the literature of argumentation studies.
The pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, for example, introduces
the concept of ‘communicative activity types’ in order to deal with the macro-
contextual dimension of argumentation. Within this approach, communicative
activity types are defined as:
conventionalized practices whose conventionalization serves, through the imple-
mentation of certain ‘genres’ of communicative activity the institutional needs
prevailing in a certain domain of communicative activity. (van Eemeren 2010: 139)
In terms of activity types, both the consensus conference and the public hearing
methods studied in this chapter would fall under the genre of the communicative
activity described as ‘deliberation’. According to van Eemeren (2010: 147–8):
The term deliberation refers to a multi-varied genre of emphatically argumenta-
tive communicative activity types, varying from a plenary debate in parliament to
an informal political Internet forum discussion, that start from a projected mixed
disagreement between the parties about issues on which their views and those of
a listening, reading or television-watching audience diverge.
According to this author, the presence of a third-party audience is quite crucial

(van Eemeren 2010: 146, note 41), and, to a certain extent, typical of this particular
genre. In this view, the argumentation of the participants in a presidential debate,
which is mentioned as a prototypical activity type of the genre of deliberation, will
be aimed at convincing a third-party audience rather than their debate partners.
It is this third-party audience that determines the outcome of the deliberation. As

the author notes (idem:142, note 30), his conception of the genre of deliberation
includes Jeffery Auer’s (1962: 146, cited therein) definition of debate, one of the
characteristics of which is to gain an audience decision.
While we agree with the author that the primary genre of political commu-
nicative activity is deliberation and that its institutional point is to “preserve a
democratic political culture by deliberation,” we find it restrictive to take the char-
acteristics of debates as a basis for describing the initial situation and the possible
outcome of the deliberative genre in general. It seems to us that this use of the term
‘deliberation’ relates it one-sidedly to communicative activities in which public
decision making is established in formal institutions such as the parliament or
through regulated procedures that involve a third-party audience. Even though in
van Eemeren’s definition of deliberation reference is made to the less formalized
arenas of deliberation, such as political Internet forum discussions, the elabora-
tion of the genre of deliberation that the author provides does not seem to take
the characteristics of these less formal types of deliberative activity into account.
Marcin Lewiński (2010: 74–75), in the following quote, lists some of these infor-
mal methods of deliberation, which are no less typical of the deliberative genre,
and in which a third-party audience does not play a (defining) role:
Examples of actually existing political activities aimed (chiefly or solely) at ‘infor-
mal public opinion-formation’ adduced by political scholars stretch from disputes
in various grassroots associations, such as feminist, environmental or civil rights
groups, and ‘letters to the editor’, to the most informal political talks in coffee-
houses and over family dinner tables.
From a slightly different theoretical perspective, but with a similar interest in ac-
counting for the contextual dimensions of argumentative reality, Douglas Walton
and Erik Krabbe (1995: 73–4) identify ‘deliberation’ as one type of dialogue among
others (next to persuasion dialogue, negotiation, inquiry, information seeking dia-
logue and eristics). The initial situation in this type of dialogue, according to the
authors, is “need for action”, the main goal is to “reach a solution”, the participants’
aim is to “influence the outcome”, and among its side benefits are to “[reach] agree-
ment, develop and reveal positions, add to prestige and vent emotions”. Despite
the objections one may raise against the theoretical status of the concept of ‘dia-
logue types’ (see Lewiński 2010: 29–31; van Eemeren 2010: 135), it seems to us
that these authors’ definition of ‘deliberation’ is descriptively more adequate to
characterize the type of activity that is taking place in either of the two methods
of public participation under study here. According to these authors, deliberation
is defined as follows:
Deliberation as a type of dialogue is similar to inquiry, and different from both

persuasion dialogue and negotiation in that it starts from an open problem, rather
than from a conflict of opinion. The problem in this case is a practical one, and
the goal is a decision on how to act. Agreement, which is a main goal in inquiry, is
here classified as a side benefit, for the final decision may be taken by an author-
ity or by a vote without general agreement on the outcome. (Walton and Krabbe
1995: 73)
Defined thus, the dialogue type of deliberation comes closer to our understanding
of this genre and to the description of the two deliberative methods of consensus
conference and public hearing provided in the social sciences literature (Rowe and
Frewer 2000, 2005; Abelson et al. 2003).
Adopting one or the other definition of deliberation proposed within argu-
mentation studies has consequences for the way the analyst understands what is
going on in the communicative activity under observation. As far as the expres-
sion of counter discourse is concerned, its role and effect in the course of a de-
liberation would be assessed differently if the parties engaged in the activity are
considered to be addressing a third-party audience instead of the parties present.
In the discussion of the data that follows, we take the expression of counter dis-
course to address the participants involved in the deliberative procedure and not
to address a third-party audience that is expected to decide on the outcome of this
procedure.
4. Counter discourse in the two methods of public deliberation
In order to illustrate how the characteristics of the two deliberative methods pre-
sented here can affect the production and evaluation of argumentative discourse,
we look closer at the way in which citizens and stakeholders manage counter dis-
course in the deliberations regarding nanotechnology. The aim is to study argu-
mentative discourse as it has actually been produced in each of these deliberative
activities against the background of the characteristics and affordances of each of
these two methods as described in the relevant literature. Since the comparison is
not directly between the argumentative discourse produced in each case, we have
chosen to study the discourse that is most typical of each method of deliberation
as acknowledged by the organizers. In the case of the consensus conference, the
core activity is the one-day public conference during which the members of the
citizens’ panel ask questions to the invited experts. In the case of the public hear-
ing, the texts produced by the stakeholders throughout the public hearings con-
stitute a representative sample of the various opinions that have circulated on the
subject of nanotechnology and, in the organizing committee’s words, a very rich

source of the ideas that the various stakeholders hold.5
We understand counter discourse in broad terms as the voicing of opposition
regarding a standpoint or an argument (or their relation thereof) advanced or yet
to be advanced by another party (see Snoeck Henkemans 1992; Amjarso 2010). In
particular, we seek to identify the ways in which counter discourse figures in the
discourse of the parties involved in each of the two deliberative methods, in order
to describe the ways in which the citizens manage the constraints posed by the two
deliberative methods in the expression of counter discourse. Given the nature of
the data (spoken in one case, written in the other) and the fact that they cannot be
immediately reconstructed in terms of a coherent argumentative discussion over
one concrete question, we do not seek to identify counter arguments in terms of a
specific move or countermove in a dialogue at the micro level of the speech event
(be it the public conference of the consensus conference, for example) or the dis-
course level (be it in the texts of the cahiers d’acteurs, for instance). Moreover, we
do not distinguish systematically between the different targets that a counter argu-
ment may have (contrary to Apothéloz et al. 1993, for example), be it the stand-
point, the argument or the relation between the two, because we do not expect
this to be an aspect in the production of argumentation that is directly affected
by the contextual and institutional constraints of the deliberative activity. Instead,
we consider what the counter discourse is about (what topics of the nanotechnol-
ogy debate it concerns), who is the one addressing it to whom, as well as whether
it is counter discourse that is advanced by the participants or counter discourse
that is anticipated in their discourse. In doing this, we compare the results of this
argumentative analysis with the expectations regarding the expression of counter
discourse in the two methods of public deliberation as they have been raised from
the discussion of the relevant literature in Section 2 of this chapter.
5. As regards the data on which this study is based, we have proceeded as follows: from the vid-
eos of the three weekends of training sessions and of the public conference itself as well as from
the written public recommendations elaborated by the members of the citizens’ panel, at her
disposal, Marianne Doury has mainly focused on the transcript of the public conference for the
purposes of the present analysis. From the total number of texts produced by the organizers of
the public hearing on nanotechnologies as well as by the participants and stakeholders, available
on the official website of the CNDP at http://cpdp.debatpublic.fr/cpdp-nano/documents/docu-
ments-par-type.html, Assimakis Tseronis’ analysis focuses on the fifty-one cahiers d’acteurs, the
four-page brochures that the stakeholders produced (see also note 8). The translation provided
in English for the excerpts discussed is the authors’.
4.1 Counter discourse in the consensus conference
When viewing the videos of the training sessions preceding the public conference,
one cannot help but be struck by the fact that the members of the citizens’ panel
are constantly invited to avoid producing counter discourse, be it in reaction to
another citizen or to an expert. This communicative requirement is made explicit
several times by Bernard, the facilitator, during the three preparatory weekends.
In the following excerpt, which takes place in the morning of the first training ses-
sion, he asks the citizens to avoid stating explicitly when they disagree with one
another:
(1) Bernard: je vous demande dans un premier temps de ne pas vous contrarier
entre vous dans un premier temps (.) vous acceptez tout ce que disent les autres
vous n’avez pas l’droit (.) pas l’droit (.) c’est pas une interdit complet/ mais
j’aime mieux que vous évitiez qu’on dise/ (.) je n’suis pas d’accord (..) vous
DItes ce que vous r’ssentez (.) hein/ (.) vous DItes (.) même si c’est pas du tout
la même chose que l’autre/ (.) c’qui est intéressant c’est que vous l’disiez (.)
hein/
Bernard: First of all I ask you not to contradict one another (.) you accept
whatever your fellow citizens say (.) you cannot (.) cannot (.) it is not strictly
forbidden/ but I’d rather you avoid saying/ (.) I don’t agree (.) you SAY what
you feel (.) you SAY it (.) even if you don’t feel the same as the other person/
(.) what counts is that you say it
The justification for such an instruction relates to a face-work requirement: ac-

cording to the facilitator, the production of counter discourse in reaction to the
expression of an opinion by a fellow citizen could discourage the more timorous
participants to voice their own point of view.
As far as the exchanges between the panel and the experts are concerned dur-
ing the training sessions, any expression of opinion by the citizens, be it in accor-
dance or in opposition to the experts’ talk is also banned:
(2) Bernard: alors là/ vous me donnez l’occasion de passer la première consigne/
[…] c’que je :: vous d’mand’rai dans un premier temps/ si vous voulez/
c’est de laisser passer plus la curiosité (.) […] c’est pas la peine d’avoir une
opinion trop vite (..) sur les choses/ il vaut mieux/ que on a des intervenants
qui sont là pour ça/ (.) i’ vont v’nir nous former/ (.) donc/ i’ faut les écouter/
i’ faut essayer d’creuser avec eux (.) X discuter avec eux/ XX leur posiez des
QUEstions\ (.) tous sont des spécialistes et i s- i’s s’attendent/ à ce vous leur
posiez des questions XX sur c’qui vous intéresse le plus (.) donc ça va être ça va
vous obliger à cet exercice le plus difficile qui soit/ (.) euh dans la vie/ (.) c’est
la curiosité\ (.) [petit rire] beaucoup plus difficile (.) de poser des questions
que d’exprimer des opinions\ (.) je crois qu’il faut qu’on se le dise/ (.) en règle
générale/ (.) exprimer des opinions/ c’est plus facile/ (.) que :: (.) que de creuser
un système/ (.) avant de comprendre\
Bernard: here is an opportunity for me to give you the first instruction/ […]
what I will ask you first/ if you agree/ is to favor curiosity (.) […] there is
no need to have an opinion too soon (…) about things/ it’s better/ we have
contributors who are here for that/ (.) they will come and train us/ (.) so/
you should listen to them/ you should try to investigate things with them
(.) X talk with them/ XX ask them QUEStions\ (.) they are all experts and
they ex- they expect you to ask questions on what counts most for you (.) so
that’s the way it’s gonna be it will force you into practicing this exercise the
most difficult there is (.) in life (.) that is curiosity (.) [laughing] it’s much
more difficult (.) to ask questions than to express opinions (.) I think it has
to be said (.) in general (.) expressing opinions is more easy (.) than (.) than
investigating a system (.) before understanding
The exchanges between the members of the citizens’ panel and the experts are
framed as informative (as a transfer of knowledge from the experts to the citizens)
rather than as argumentative (as a confrontation of opinions). Typically, they are
supposed to follow the “conference / question / answer” pattern during the train-
ing sessions. According to this pattern, the expert gives a lecture on a specific as-
pect of the nanotechnology file in a monological way, he then invites the citizens to
ask questions and eventually answers them. During the round tables of the public
conference, exchanges between the citizens and the experts follow the “question /
answer” pattern. In this perspective, questions are seen as a way of eliciting a trans-
fer of knowledge, and are not supposed to have a challenging dimension (they are
not supposed to invite a reaction to a counter argument, for instance).
However, when we turn to the communicative behavior of the members of
the citizens’ panel during the public conference, we observe that the commu-
nicative frame proposed by the conference organizers, as sketched above, does
not fit the communicative footing of the participants. Though somewhat rare,
we still find cases during the round table where a member of the citizens’ panel
counters the statement of another fellow citizen. For example, at some point dur-
ing the public conference, Fatoumata (a member of the citizens’ panel) doubts
that the price of mobile phones has lowered; Laurent Gouzenes, an expert from
STMicroelectronics, categorically contests this statement. Nicolas (another citi-
zen) then intervenes:
(3) Nicolas: excusez-moi mais (.) le portable ça a très fortement baissé parce que il
y a dix ans vous payiez le téléphone/ plus aussi un abonnement/ et c’était euh::
(.) c’était 80 euros pour une heure et c’était à peu près euh: 300 euros pour le
matériel (.) donc euh ça a considérablement évolué [geste de la main qui écarte
toute objection]
Nicolas: I am sorry but (.) the price of a mobile phone has gone down so
much because ten years ago you were paying the telephone/ on top of it for
a telephone contract/ and er:: (.) it cost 80 euros for one hour and it was
almost er:: (.) it was 300 euros for the appliance (.) so er this has evolved
considerably [makes a gesture with the hand to anticipate any objection]
It must be noted that whereas he clearly contradicts the content of Fatoumata’s

former statement, Nicolas, who first apologizes before introducing his own posi-
tion with a mais (but), does not address Fatoumata directly, but Laurent Gouzenes,
the expert who spoke right after her. Whereas Nicolas, in principle, agrees with
this expert that the price of mobile phones has indeed lowered and disagrees
with Fatoumata, the address format he has chosen diverts the contradiction from
his fellow citizen onto the expert, thus rescuing the solidarity between the panel
members built throughout the training sessions and highly advocated by the facili-
tator. The way in which Nicolas formulates his reaction and the fact that he directs
it to the expert rather than to his fellow citizen is a good illustration of the way in
which members of the citizens’ panel manage the constraints on the expression of
counter discourse imposed by the institutional setting.6
Let us now turn to counter discourse produced by members of the citizens’
panel in reaction to an expert’s statement. According to the literature (Bourg and
Boy 2005), the core of the public conference is the interaction between the invited
speakers, selected by the citizens during the last preparatory weekend, and the
members of the citizens’ panel. The speakers are invited to take part in the confer-
ence on the basis of their alleged expertise on a given aspect of the nanotechnology
file — be it a technical aspect, an ethical aspect, or a juridical aspect. The division
between the participants into the invited panelists and the citizens is thus based
on an unequal distribution of competence. This division is nevertheless often re-
interpreted as an argumentative one: some citizens seem to consider the experts
they invited as opponents in an argumentative discussion, and address them in a
challenging mode (see Doury and Lorenzo-Basson 2012; Kerr et al. 2007).
Thus, on many occasions the citizens phrase their reactions to the experts’
interventions following a recurring pattern: “ratification of the expert’s state-
ment / opposition marker / element of counter discourse.” Such interventions,
from a conversational point of view, are both reactive moves (their first part
ratifies the interlocutor’s intervention) and initiating moves (the second part,
6. The second case illustrating this form of counter discourse obeys the same strategy of indi-
rect contradiction between citizens.
whether it has an interrogative syntactic structure or not, asks for a reaction from
the interlocutor).
In the following example, Shérazade (a member of the citizens’ panel) reacts
to François Berger (a professor of medicine, member of the INSERM Ethics com-
mittee), who has warned that multiplying regulations might make the medical
research stagnate and suggests that ethical concerns, together with the existing
regulation, are sufficient to help researchers as well as industrialists to manage the
risk issue:
(4) Shérazade: alors euh moi vous: étiez en train d’parler d’éthique (.) euh:::
éthique je veux bien/ (.) mais: ya quand même des produits toxiques qui sont
quand même mis sur les marchés/
Shérazade: so er I you: were talking about ethics (.) er::: I agree on ethical
considerations myself/ (.) but: there are nevertheless toxic products which
are available in the markets
In her intervention, Shérazade contrasts the interlocutor’s statement (which she

summarizes as “you were talking about ethics”) with facts (the marketing of toxic
products, in particular, asbestos). The contrast is marked by the use of mais (but)
and the repetition of quand même (nevertheless). The whole structure is meant
to justify the relevance of the question she asks following the one about the risks
incurred on people exposed to nanoparticles in professional contexts.
Such a pattern fits well with the constraints that govern the participating for-
mat of the members of the citizens’ panel. Clearly, experts are expected to produce
a discourse that is quantitatively much more developed than the one expected
from the citizens. Although the latter are recurrently raising critical questions
when they disagree with the experts’ position, they do not elaborate on their own
position as extensively as the experts do. In fact, this kind of self-effacing discur-
sive behavior is one that the citizens can afford, since, in the end, they are the ones
who will have the last word: the concluding remarks, through the elaboration of
the citizens’ recommendations, are to be written by them.
When reacting to the intervention of an expert during the public conference,
the citizens may also report an element of counter discourse borrowed from an
expert who intervened during the training sessions, as in the following example,
where Dominique (a member of the citizens’ panel) reacts to the proposition of
a moratorium on nanotechnologies advocated by Aleksandra Kordecka, from the
Friends of the Earth association:
(5) Dominique: alors (.) d’accord/ (.) mais là on nous a dit/ que:: (.) vous parlez
d’moratoire/ (.) et on nous a dit pendant nos:: sessions précédentes qu’il n’y
aurait pas spécialement de moratoire/ parce que (.) bon tout avait été déjà (.)
en gros (.) euh lancé/ (.) euh le lancement était déjà fait donc un moratoire ne
servirait (.) pas à grand-chose/ (.) donc euh: (.) c’est un peu contradictoire par
rapport à c’que vous dites/ là\ (.)
Dominique: so (.) ok/ (.) but we have been told/ that:: (.) you are talking
about a moratorium/ (.) and they told us during our:: previous sessions
that there could not be any special moratorium / because (.) well everything
has already (.) more or less (.) er been introduced/ (.) er everything is already
introduced so a moratorium would serve (.) at nothing/ (.) so er: (.) it is a bit
contradictory with respect to what you are saying/ now\ (.)
In this example, as in many other instances of the same phenomenon in the data,
the introduction by a citizen of a piece of information, which was first given by
an expert during the training sessions, and which contradicts the present expert’s
statement, is often used as an argument for challenging the latter. This strategic
use of disagreement between experts cannot be understood in terms of logics but
rather in relation to the organization and the dynamics of the whole process. From
a logical point of view, disagreement is somewhat symmetrical, and there is no
(good) reason why the existence of disagreement should systematically indicate
incompetence of the experts taking part in the public conference rather than in-
competence of the experts contributing to the training sessions. The citizens’ reli-
ance on the discourse of the latter is explained from the fact that they have spent
more time with them during the training sessions, they were more receptive to
their arguments because their conferences took place at the beginning of the train-
ing process, at a time when the citizens did not have yet a fully articulate stand-
point on the issue. Besides, most of the experts who intervened during the training
sessions are not present during the public conference; hence they simply cannot
be asked to account for the contradictory expertise, and the burden of proof falls
on the present experts.
Let us finally mention that counter discourse addressed to an expert by a
member of the citizens’ panel, whether assumed by the latter or borrowed from an-
other expert, may in turn be acknowledged by the expert to whom it is addressed.
Hence, Aleksandra Kordecka answers to Dominique’s objection as follows:
(6) AK: […] pour le moment/ (.) on est vraiment CONtre les produits qui sont (.)
qui sont déjà sur le marché/ (.) mais c’est (.) c’est difficile: (.) c’est vraiment
difficile pour parler avec euh: (.) avec le: (.) bon le gouvernement et la
commission européenne parce que les produits sont déjà là/ (.) l’industrie
euh dit oui: c’est sûr/ euh: (.) on a::: il faut il faut il faut euh (.) il faut plus de
tests/ pour le moment ça va/ (.) alors c’est on est aussi dans le dans le position
difficile.
AK: […] for the time being/ (.) we are really aGAINnst the products (.)
that are already out in the market/ (.) but it is (.) it is difficult: (.) it is
really difficult to talk with er: (.) with the: (.) well the government and the
European Commission because these products are already there/ (.) the
industry er says yes: they are ok/ er: (.) we have::: there must there must er (.)
there must be more tests/ it is ok for the moment/ (.) so it is we are also in a
difficult situation.
She thus recognizes, following Dominique’s objection, that the proposition of

a moratorium is made difficult by the timing issue (namely, the fact that “these
products are already there”). Although taking Dominique’s objection into account
forces Aleksandra Kordecka into recognizing that her position is difficult, she nev-
ertheless maintains that a call for moratorium is neither useless nor excluded.
The fact that experts acknowledge in one way or another counter arguments
they are confronted with is very frequent. It is certainly mainly due to the inter-
actional format of the public conference. The elements of counter discourse pro-
duced by members of the citizens’ panel in reaction to the experts’ interventions
are often phrased as questions, and could not be left unanswered without produc-
ing a sense of dismissal or of disrespect.
4.2 Counter discourse in the public hearing
In the public hearings on nanotechnology, contrary to the procedure of the con-

sensus conference, there has never been any explicit guideline regarding the ex-
change of arguments and the voicing of the participants’ counter discourse. As the
president of the CNDP put it: “in a public debate one discusses whatever the public
wishes to talk about.”7
The fifty-one cahiers d’acteurs8 produced in the course of the public hearing on
nanotechnologies provide a representative sample of the various positions held by
stakeholders in favor or against the development of nanotechnologies in France.
Despite their written form and the fact that they were in principle produced in
order to inform the public about the position of the respective stakeholders and
7. Original text: “dans un débat public, on parle de tout ce dont le public souhaite parler.”
These are the words of Jean Bergougnoux, president of the organizing committee of the public
hearing on nanotechnology, reproduced in a flyer entitled “Débat public nanotechnologies. Je
m’informe, je m’exprime” that was distributed during the public hearings.
8. These are four-page brochures that the CNDP invited stakeholders such as workers’ unions,
research institutes, government bodies, regional councils, and NGO’s, among others to produce
in order to express in written their positions on the subject of the development and applications
of nanotechnology in France.
associations on the issue of nanotechnology, it is interesting to see that their au-

thors more often than not choose to express their position in relation to those held
by other parties and/or to anticipate possible criticisms against their own posi-
tion. Overall, when reading through the texts of the cahiers d’acteurs, it becomes
clear that one main source from which a number of the stakeholders draw their
information (and counter to which they subsequently seek to argue) is the official
referral for the organization of these public hearings produced by the seven min-
istries constituting the contracting owner, as well as the informative document
published by them on the topic of nanotechnologies prior to the beginning of the
public hearing sessions.
Moreover, as almost half of the cahiers d’acteurs were produced after the launch-
ing of the public hearings and as the sessions were being held, in a number of them,
the authors assume propositions and opinions that counter those held in the earlier
public hearings. Take for example the following excerpt from the text produced by
the Society for the Study, Protection, and the Development of Nature in the South-
East area of France (SEPANSO). In this, the authors counter the position held by
participants during a public meeting preceding the publication of their text on the
issue of the wastes produced by industries in the nanotechnology sector:
(7) Même si l’on peut imaginer — on s’en occupe, semble-t-il — un contrôle
acceptable du dernier stade d’utilisation, celui du déchet, il y a une infinité de
possibilités de migrations des nanomatériaux vers l’air, l’eau, les écosystèmes, la
mer… Contrairement à ce qui a été dit lors du débat, le problème des déchets
n’est pas réglé, et la solution proposée, l’incinération, n’a jamais résolu aucun
problème de déchets. On ne pourra incinérer des nanoparticules que lorsqu’on
aura démontré l’innocuité de ce procédé.
Even if one can imagine — it seems that they are actually working on it — a
control of the last stage of the usage of these products, i.e. of their wastes,
that is acceptable, there is still a multitude of possibilities of transference of
nanomaterials into the air, the water, the ecosystems, the sea… Contrary to
what has been said during the public hearings, the problem of wastes has
not been treated, and the solution proposed, that is their incineration, has
never solved any problem concerning waste treatment. One cannot burn
nanoparticles until one has proved the safety of this procedure.
In fact, reading through the cahiers d’acteurs, one can identify passages where ref-
erence is made to positions held by other parties concerning the issues of the appli-
cation of a moratorium on the development of nanotechnologies or the efficiency
of the practice of labeling products that contain nanoparticles. On the question of
moratorium, for example, the text of the Academy of Medicine below makes indi-
rect reference to positions advocated by groups such as the organization Friends
of the Earth and the Sciences and Democracy Global Forum, by qualifying the
proposal for a moratorium as an error:
(8) Néanmoins devront être évitées les erreurs suivantes : > Vouloir traiter
toutes les nanoparticules (même celles déjà présentes naturellement dans
l’environnement, ou résultant de l’activité humaine); > Être dans une
logique binaire (interdiction ou absence totale de précaution); > Mettre en
place systématiquement un moratoire. C’est là où l’application du principe
de précaution, inscrit dans la Constitution, doit tenir compte de toutes ses
particularités.
However, the following mistakes should be avoided : > Wanting to treat
all nanoparticles (including those that are already naturally present in the
environment or those resulting from human activity); > Entering into a
binary logic (prohibition or total absence of precaution); > Systematically
putting into practice a moratorium. It is on these matters that the
precautionary principle, inscribed in the Constitution, should take into
account all these particularities.
Finally, another issue on which there seems to be contestation from a certain group
of stakeholders (mainly the groups Science and Democracy, and Foundation of
Citizen Sciences), regards the time constraints as well as the timing of these pub-
lic hearings and the real intentions behind its organization at the given moment
in time and not earlier. On this matter, a number of stakeholders have explicitly
criticized the organizing committee and the authorities for holding these public
hearings at a moment when crucial decisions have already been made on the mat-
ter and in a way that does not put into discussion the real problems arising from
the use of nanotechnologies. Here is an excerpt from the text of the Science and
Democracy Foundation:
(9) Malgré 17 réunions, ce débat ne permet que d’esquisser les problèmes,
non d’élaborer des solutions. Pouvait-on de façon réaliste espérer débattre
de la question centrale de la protection des consommateurs en une heure
par exemple ? C’est pourtant le temps qui lui a été accordé dans la séance
d’Orléans. (…)
De la bouche des membres de la CNDP, il a été conçu comme une opération
d’information à destination du grand public. Une information descendante
uniquement, des experts et des institutions vers le public donc. Ce n’est pas
ce qu’on attend d’un débat public. Nous considérons qu’une telle opération
aurait encore été acceptable il y a 5 ans, au moment où les premiers produits
sont arrivés sur le marché. L’opposition farouche que le débat public a
rencontrée dans plusieurs villes trouve ici sa justification: marché déjà
développé, financements publics déjà décidés, réglementation absente et, pour

finir, débat public qui n’en est pas un.
Despite its 17 public meetings, this debate does not help to identify the
problems or to elaborate on the solutions. Would it be realistic to expect
that one be able to deliberate on the central issue of the protection of
consumers in just one hour, for instance? This is the time they allocated on
the subject, however, in the public hearing that took place in Orleans. (…)
According to the members of the CNDP, these public hearings were
conceived of as an operation of information of the greater public. Of
information that goes down from the experts and the institutions towards
the public. This is not what one expects from a public debate. We think
that such an operation would have still been acceptable 5 years ago, at a time
when the first products had arrived on the market.
The contestation of the procedure followed in the deliberation on nanotechnol-

ogies and the eventual impact this procedure may have in the decision-making
process is also observed in the consensus conference but arises mainly in the dis-
cussions between the citizens and the experts during the training sessions.
Perhaps more interestingly, counter discourse is not merely advanced by some
parties against the positions held by others in the course of the public hearings,
as we have seen above, but it is also acknowledged in the discourse of those stake-
holders whose positions are being attacked or are likely to be questioned. This is
the case mainly in the texts produced by representatives of the various science
and manufacturers groups, such as the Academy of Technology, the Academy of
Sciences, and the Academy of Medicine. In the following excerpt, the Academy of
Technology seeks to neutralize the criticism that can be raised on the basis of their
assertion in the beginning of their text, that there still lacks an agreement on the
nomenclature for the identification of nanoparticles. Opposition groups would be
ready to exploit the acknowledgement that there is uncertainty and disagreement
among experts on the questions regarding naming and eventually measuring of
the nanoparticles in order to support their proposals for prohibition of any further
development on nanotechnologies. The Academy of Technology in the following
excerpt refutes such a counter discourse by dissociating between lack of certainty
and lack of standardization:
(10) Il n’existe pas encore d’accord entre chercheurs sur une nomenclature
universellement reconnue pour l’identification des nanoparticules. Ce n’est
pas un problème d’incertitude sur ce qu’est une nanoparticule (toute particule
dont au moins deux des trois dimensions sont nanométriques, entre le
nanomètre et la centaine de nanomètres) mais une question de convention,
qui pourrait servir notamment dans le cadre de la règlementation des produits
mis sur le marché. Un cas typique est le nanotube de carbone dont il peut
exister des milliers de formes différentes (dimensions, surface, etc.).
There still lacks among researchers an agreement on a universally recognized
nomenclature for the identification of nanoparticles. This is not a problem
of uncertainty on the definition of a nanoparticle (any particle whose at
least two of the three dimensions are on the nanoscale, that is, between
the nanometer and the nanoncentimeter) but a question of conventions,
which could be of use primarily in the issues regarding the regulation
of the products circulating on the market. One such typical case is the
carbon nanotube of which thousands of different forms exist (in terms of
dimensions, surface, etc.).
Finally, a frequent pattern, in those cases where the stakeholders acknowledge

the counter discourse that exists regarding their positions, is to mention the exis-
tence of it and to qualify it as erroneous, as the result of fear or of ignorance. See
for example, the following excerpt by the National Organization of Independent
Unions, UNSA:
(11) Les années 60 ont généré la première crise sanitaire liée à une nanofibre :
l’utilisation de l’amiante dans les bâtiments. Nier la possible dangerosité de
nano-objets ou nanomatériaux relèverait donc de l’imposture. Mais penser
que tous ces nano-objets et nanomatériaux sont potentiellement dangereux
relève soit de l’obscurantisme, soit de l’ignorance. Désormais qui peut nier
l’utilité pour la santé de certaines molécules ?
In the 60’s the first sanitary crisis burst out related to the nanofibre: the
use of the asbestos in building construction. To refuse the possible dangers
related to nano-objects or nanomaterials would amount to imposture. But
to think that all nano-objects and nanomaterials are potentially dangerous
amounts to either obscurantism or ignorance. From now on, who can
refuse the utility of certain molecules for our health?
As the organizers of the public hearings on nanotechnologies admit in the final

report that was distributed two months after the end of the procedure, there has
been contestation of this deliberative procedure both from the outside and from
the inside: namely by those associations and stakeholders who decided that they
did not want to take part in it (see the case of the radical group Pièces et Main
d’Oeuvre), as well as by those stakeholders and participants who have raised the
question about the timing of the deliberation, coming a little too late as decisions
have already been taken on the subject. The lack of guidelines concerning the ex-
pression of the opposite opinion and the acknowledgement of counter discourse
as well as the lack of a strict selection procedure for those taking part in the panel
and in the audience — contrary to the consensus conference procedure — have

eventually allowed more opinions to be heard during the sessions of the public
hearings and in the various texts produced by the stakeholders. It is noteworthy,
nonetheless, that it is these same conditions that have also allowed the radical op-
position group Pièces et Main d’Oeuvre to disrupt a number of public sessions and
to lead to the cancelation of one of them. Interestingly, the organizing committee
of the CNDP was subsequently forced to change the procedure from a round table
open to the public to a round table held behind closed doors and broadcast live on
the Internet, something which led to a radical change in the format of the overall
public hearing procedure.
5. Concluding remarks
The consensus conference in the literature on methods of deliberative democracy

is generally valued as a more participative and engaging method compared to the
public hearing (Rowe and Frewer 2000). In the study of the application of these
two methods on the issue of the development and applications of nanotechnology
in France, we have shown that both methods have their merits and disadvantages
as far as letting the opposition be heard is concerned. In the consensus confer-
ence, counter discourse is not encouraged during the training sessions and it is
something that is more recurrent during the actual public conference, vis-à-vis the
experts’ panel. However, such counter discourse comes from a selected number of
citizens who have undergone some training in order to have enough information
and knowledge on the subject. On the other hand, there is no condition on the
expression of counter discourse in the process of public hearing. This is some-
thing that can be justified to a certain extent by the fact that the final aim of the
consensus conference is producing a (more or less consensual) report among the
members of the citizens’ panel, while the final aim of the public hearing is to have
as many voices heard as possible.
The argumentative analysis of the discourse produced in each of these events
has shown that despite significant differences in the available opportunities to ex-
press counter discourse within the two distinct methods of public deliberation,
as described in the social and political sciences literature, in each case the par-
ticipants found ways to express such counter discourse. As a matter of fact, one
could think of the presence of counter discourse (identified on the textual level
by markers of opposition, negation and concession, among others)9 as a means
9. See, Tseronis (2011) for a proposal regarding the search for relevant argumentative passages
in a large corpus of texts relying on argumentative markers.
for evaluating the quality and effectiveness of a certain method of deliberation:

the more chances the participants in a particular method of public deliberation
are given to voice their counter discourse, the more successful that method can
be considered in engaging the participation of the public in decision making pro-
cesses. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that a complete freedom of the ex-
pression of counter discourse in a public deliberation procedure runs the risk of
hindering the very aim of such a procedure, which is to reach a decision on the
matter deliberated.
As far as the definition of ‘deliberation’ within the field of argumentation stud-
ies is concerned, we are of the opinion that a typology of argumentative activity
types, in which deliberation features as one such type, can benefit by taking into
consideration the variety of methods of public engagement in decision making
processes that are discussed in the social and political sciences literature and the
ways in which these are applied in practice. Such activities may range from formal
and institutional ones to less formal while the preferred mode of communica-
tion (spoken, written, online, etc.) in each may also vary. Taking into account the
various methods of public participation and deliberation can help argumentation
theorists have a better grip on the reality that they seek to describe when it comes
to the analysis of the discourse produced in processes of citizen participation in
decision making.
Acknowledgements
The study presented here results from the collaboration during 2010 and 2011 of the two authors
in an interdisciplinary research project entitled “Chimères nanobiotechnologiques et posthu-
manité,” financed by the National Research Agency (ANR) of France, and supervised by Francis
Chateauraynaud (GSPR, EHESS).
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Deliberation digitized
Designing disagreement space through
communication-information services
Mark Aakhus
School of Communication & Information /
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
A specific issue for argumentation theory is whether information and communi-

cation technologies (ICTs) play any role in governing argument — that is, as par-
ties engage in practical activities across space and time via ICTs, does technology
matter for the interplay of argumentative content and process in managing
disagreement? The case made here is that technologies do matter because they
are not merely conduits of communication but have a role in the pragmatics of
communication and argumentation. In particular, ICTs should be recognized as
communication-information services that are delegated degrees of responsibility
for managing disagreements arising from practical activities. These services are
organized around practical theories for designing disagreement space. However,
recognizing this relationship between argument and technology requires ac-
counting for procedures, techniques, or rules (i.e., such as found in technology)
and speech acts that are not argumentative propositions in any strict sense but
that are consequential for what becomes argumentation in any setting. An ac-
count about designing disagreement space, grounded in Jackson and Jacobs’s
theory of Disagreement Management, is put forward to address these issues
while more generally contributing to understanding argument in context.
Keywords: disagreement management, disagreement space, information-

communication technologies, social media, deliberation, argument governance,
communication design work, third-parties
1. Introduction
From the earliest to the most recent manifestations of information and communi-
cation technology (ICT), deliberation has been an important object of interest for
doi 10.1075/bct.76.05aak
102 Mark Aakhus
the development and use of ICT. The evolution of ICT, and its seeming insinuation
into all walks of life, is no doubt intimately tied to its various capacities to support
humans in determining prudent courses of action. The digitization of delibera-
tion through ICTs has found its way into all types of human decision-making but
nowhere is this more apparent than in political communication. While the op-
portunities for political argument and the innovation of technological support for
political deliberation abound (e.g., Davies and Gangadharan 2009; Hilbert 2009),
deliberation digitized poses a particularly poignant opportunity for advancing the
understanding of argumentation in context (Aakhus and Lewiński 2011).
In any deliberation the practical matter of argument governance arises. Central
to deliberation is the interplay between argumentative content and process — that
is, in the course of making arguments participants also manage how they are hav-
ing an argument. Thus, the parties are responsible for the unfolding argumen-
tation and how it contributes to the development of the content, direction, and
outcomes of the practical activity in which they are engaged. A specific issue for
argumentation theory is whether ICTs play any role in governing argument —
that is, as parties engage in practical activities across space and time via ICTs,
how does that technological context matter for argumentation? One direction for
answering the question is to say that technology is a neutral conduit or platform
through which communication passes that is essentially inconsequential for ar-
gumentation. Another direction is to say that technology is part of the context of
argumentation that is consequential for argument and those consequences need
to be understood. This latter direction is taken up here because research on ICTs
makes the first position untenable (e.g., Hutchby 2001) and because it is an avenue
to address the important social phenomenon of deliberation digitized while con-
tributing to theoretical interest in argumentation theory about taking context into
account in the analysis of argumentation.
So, if technology is part of the context of argument, how then can it be ac-
counted for in analyzing argument? Logical analysis has principally concerned
itself with the reconstruction of the inferential connections between propositions
expressed by a speaker. Context is not pertinent to the analysis, especially the in-
teractional, pragmatic aspects of context. Dialectical analysis principally concerns
itself with the reconstruction of the exchange of propositions between speakers.
While much can be said about the advances for argumentation theory developed
by the pragmatic dialectical approaches (see van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004,
van Eemeren 2010; Walton 1998), a key insight is how these approaches incorpo-
rate the interactional and pragmatic aspects of communication in argument re-
construction. These theories take aspects of context into account but principally
to get a more precise analysis of propositions evident in argumentation. What re-
quires further development is an understanding of the interplay of argumentative
Deliberation digitized 103
content and process as this relates to the elaboration, and construction, of the
practical activity in which argumentation occurs. For instance, how to account
for speech acts, and aspects of speech acts, that shape argumentative process but
do not translate, at least directly, into argumentatively relevant propositions (e.g.,
premises, conclusions, critical questions, qualifications)? How to account for
procedures, techniques, or rules (i.e., such as found in technology) that are not
propositions in any strict sense but that are consequential for what becomes argu-
mentation in any setting?
Drawing together the practical concerns with deliberation digitized and the
theoretical concerns with argument in context, a case is made here that the re-
lationship between argument and technology should be defined in terms of the
pragmatic role technology plays in the management of disagreement and not as a
mere conduit of communication. Central to this case is the claim that the devel-
opment and use of ICTs to support deliberation should be understood, from an
argumentative point of view, as communication-information services that take re-
sponsibility for aspects of interaction that afford communicative possibilities and
that shape what argumentation becomes in practical activities. Moreover, these
services are types of third-party interventions built around forms of disagreement
management practice that reflect practical theories for designing argumentation.
Such a claim emphasizes that design is not only about classic concerns with the
way messages convey arguments and convince others but about how interactiv-
ity affords and constrains argumentation and the knowledge and action that flow
from it. From such a standpoint, for instance, institutions for argumentation ought
to be seen as designs for disagreement management that can bear a rational rela-
tionship to the management of disagreement not just a conventional relationship.
Moreover, argument analysis can, and should, go further than attending to propo-
sitions and the exchange of propositions. This can be achieved by attending to the
design of interactivity and its role in shaping what argumentation becomes.
The chapter develops around two main sections. First, some theoretical con-
siderations about the design of argumentative interaction and its relation to prac-
tical activities are undertaken to develop a direction for explaining argument in
context. Second, the relationship between argument and technology is explained
in terms of designing disagreement space.
104 Mark Aakhus
2. Argument and disagreement management
2.1 Reconsidering argument activities
As argument happens in practical activities, participants make connections be-

tween premises and conclusions and find ways to use information to justify and
refute what has been said or implied in connecting premises and conclusions.
Argumentation theory has developed various ways to analyze and evaluate both.
The relation between premise and conclusion is one classic concern of argumenta-
tion theory, especially as seen in logic and informal logic. The other has been with
the uses of information to justify and refute claims, especially as seen in dialectical
theories. As the interplay between argumentative content and process is further
considered, it becomes apparent that the way parties interact shapes the relation-
ship between argument and the practical activity context. Taking this interplay
into account provides the grounds for understanding the relationship between ar-
gument and context, more generally, and technology, more specifically.
Consider the case of a meeting among community leaders, described by
Aakhus and Vasilyeva (2008), where a very contentious issue about land devel-
opment for a community was taken up. The meeting involved members of the
community who served in various representative capacities (e.g., mayor, council
members, planning commission) and representatives of a development company
(e.g., managers, executives, and legal counsel). The meeting was organized around
a company’s proposal for land development. It was also a secret meeting. It was not
a council meeting, a sanctioned committee meeting, or a formal negotiation. The
entire meeting, which lasted one-hour twenty minutes, was organized around a
proposal seeking acceptance while avoiding rejection. These are the classic action
elements central to deliberation.
One of the many interesting matters about this meeting had to do with how the
parties worked out what it was they were jointly doing in their meeting. Indeed,
what was achieved in this case was political deliberation but not the celebrated
sense of political deliberation. The participant contributions to the meeting were
overwhelmingly relevant to the proposal at hand. This was evident in the raising
and handling of doubts and objections to various aspects of the proposal and what
the proposal assumed and projected. Each thread of discussion in the meeting
took up some aspect of the proposals assumptions through devil’s advocacy and
hypothetical arguments in addition to some direct assertion and refutation. The
discussion went in many directions but its overall coherence was kept intact as dif-
ferent points of actual and potential disagreement were opened and closed. While
the proposal ultimately failed to receive the assent of those gathered, the parties
narrowed the gap between the proposal and its grounds for acceptance. Yet, the
pursuit of disagreement in the discussion actually left a range of opposing posi-

tions out of the deliberation. Indeed, the nature of the discussion itself framed the
entire development issue in the community as a matter of settling a very particular
range of issues regarding barriers to the proposal.
The problem illustrated in the development case is not just about the ratio-
nality of premise-conclusion relationships or the reasonableness of the way a
particular contribution justifies or refutes something that has been said. The case
highlights the consequences of how the actors interacting together over time shape
the content, direction, and outcomes of argumentation and the practical activity
from which argumentation arises. It is this aspect of context — the design of argu-
mentative interaction and its relation to practical activities — that requires further
attention in argumentation theory. Such attention can deepen understanding of
argument governance and the role of practice and procedures (e.g., technology,
organizations, etc.) in argumentation.
Key advances for argumentation theory found in Pragma-Dialectics (van
Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004; van Eemeren 2010) and the New Dialectics
(Walton 1998) are sensitive to how interactivity can matter for argument quality
and offer insights into how to take interactivity into account in argument analysis.
There are differences between these two theories about how to take interactiv-
ity into account (e.g., van Eemeren 2010: 129–162; Lewiński 2010: 11–31, 47–61).
However, whether interactivity is construed as ideal dialogue types in the New
Dialectics or conventional argumentative activity types in Pragma-Dialectics,
these abstract characterizations of interactivity are used to define the context so
that assessments of a contribution’s reasonableness incorporates the relevance of
that contribution to the supposed form of interactivity (e.g., planning, negotiat-
ing) occurring within some setting. Their point is to analytically stabilize context
for the purposes of reconstructing the propositional content and the moves made
for evaluation relative to particular standards about premise-conclusion relation-
ships and the appropriateness of argumentative moves.
The importance of Pragma-Dialectics and the New Dialectics is by now gen-
erally understood. Their theoretical moves provide insight into the interplay of
argumentative content and process because each, in its own way, recognizes that
the way contributions are made enhances or degrades the argumentative quality
of interactivity. Yet, there is the prospect that reasonable argument performed in a
manner relevant to the dialogue type or the conventional activity type presumed
by the analyst can generate argumentation that is slightly, if not wholly, irrelevant
to the practical activity in which it arose. This is the problem highlighted by the
land development case. It would appear that there is theoretical and practical value
in understanding how argumentation is constructed from practical activities and
the role of argumentation in constructing practical activities. The use of dialogue
106 Mark Aakhus
types and conventionalized argumentative activity types are not so well suited to
this task. It is like using the concept of a game to understand language-use without
seeing how language-use helps explain the concept of game itself.
2.2 Disagreement management
In a series of articles starting in the 1980s, Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs estab-
lished a distinct perspective on argument by developing a theory of argument as
disagreement management that provides the grounds for addressing the interplay
of argumentative content and process. Rather than creating a normative model
of good argument, they instead sought to explain how argument naturally hap-
pens in everyday settings and to account for a range of argumentative phenomena
found in ordinary conversation previously resistant to a systematic explanation.
They saw that argument is not distinct from communication because its very pos-
sibility is due to the principles and conditions of language and interaction that
make communication itself possible. In particular, argument functions as a type
of repair that is particularly attuned to managing disagreement that can arise at
potentially any point in conversation (Jackson and Jacobs 1980). The basic idea led
to deeper insights about the nature of argument: that arguments are made through
a variety of speech acts other than assertions, that argument happens because a
prior action is made arguable, that the grounds for argument are found in conven-
tions about the valid performance of speech actions and principles of relevance,
and that argument practices are adaptions to activity contexts. Three key insights
from Disagreement Management provide the grounds for understanding the de-
sign of argumentative interaction and its relation to practical activities.
First, argument happens relative to the potential for disagreement in contexts
of practical activity. Disagreement can arise at almost any point in practical activi-
ties and interaction can become organized around the gap between what is agree-
able and disagreeable. Disagreement space is the “structured set of opportunities
for argument” defined by the “indefinitely large and complex set of beliefs, wants,
and intentions” that interactants can reconstruct from what has been said or pro-
jected in saying something (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, and Jacobs
1993: 95). Disagreement happens when an action performed in practical activity
is called-out and made arguable in terms of what the action claims or assumes to
be true about some state of affairs — a prior action’s information relevance — or
in terms of the appropriateness of the action in the context of activity — a prior
action’s pragmatic relevance (Jacobs and Jackson 1992). Information relevance is
the relationship between premise and conclusion, which is the classic concern in
argumentation theory, while pragmatic relevance is the “use of information to jus-
tify or refute a contested standpoint” (Jacobs and Jackson 1992: 162).
The pursuit of disagreement, and thus the shape and content of any disagree-
ment space, will vary with the practical activity context in which disagreement is
generated (Jackson 1992: 268). The management of disagreement orients toward
the grounds needed to generate agreement — that is, the type and amount of sup-
port and justification required to resolve a disagreement. From a disagreement
management perspective, argument can aim at resolving disagreement but it is
not limited to resolving disagreement, as argument can also open-up, amplify, and
avoid disagreement — hence, the emphasis on managing disagreement.
Argumentation is a communication phenomenon subject to the properties of
language and interaction that give rise to communication, such as the basic ne-
gotiation of the content and process common to all interaction (e.g., Clark 1992).
Argumentation is a joint achievement of the participants as they negotiate the
grounds for overcoming (or not) objections to claims about states of affairs or the
appropriateness of an action. Proof in argumentation is dynamic and emergent be-
cause what is said is always subject to further calling-out and contestation ground-
ed in practical activities. Forms of everyday reasoning about proof — establishing
the truth of a matter and the appropriateness of an action — may develop and
become conventional but that knowledge is subordinate to the ways that parties
pursue the management of disagreement.
Second, argument happens through moves and counter-moves the conduct of
which constructs the nature of a disagreement space from the ongoing context of
practical activity. It is through moves and counter-moves that the content, direc-
tion, and outcome of activity is generated. Whether disagreement becomes func-
tional to advancing a practical activity or ends up consuming a practical activity is
contingent on how parties respond to each other. This is most clearly seen in the
analysis of digressions. Jacobs and Jackson (1992) explain that digressions happen
not just because moves fail to bear on the matters at hand but also, and important-
ly, because some moves “refocus attention away from the argumentative potential”
of prior moves and toward some other potential. Digressions are the product of
pragmatic irrelevance such as when relevant information is used in unproductive
ways or when argumentation is used to support an uncontested standpoint (Jacobs
and Jackson 1992: 173).
Parties to a disagreement are jointly responsible for how their contributions
construct the context of what is disagreeable and the pursuit of disagreement. At
each turning point in an exchange, the next move can reconstruct a potentially
relevant argument from what has been said or presumed. Digressions involve
irrelevance and are collaborative failures of the parties (e.g., Jackson 2005). The
practices for managing disagreement can vary in how argumentative potential is
realized (or not) through the construction of a disagreement space.
108 Mark Aakhus
Third, argument happens through practices generated from basic principles

of language and social interaction adapted to pursuing the management of dis-
agreement in practical contexts of activity. Early on Jackson and Jacobs (1980)
pointed out that the structural expansions of disagreement would differ depend-
ing on whether the argumentative move repairs disagreement or anticipates such
repair. Thus, they were able to recognize how the everyday conversational prac-
tices for having arguments, implying or making arguments, or for avoiding or
backing-down from arguments were adaptations to features of everyday talk in in-
teraction. The natural adaptation reveals itself in other ways. For instance, Jacobs
(1989) shows that recognizable argumentative forms, such as devil’s advocacy or
hypothetical argument, are adaptations to practical contexts of activity that em-
phasize cooperative, joint problem-solving discussion. Argument forms suited to
the presumptive form of debate are not as well suited to the practical demands of
more cooperative activity. So, moves such as devil’s advocacy and hypothetical
argument are not indirect or even defective versions of idealized canonical forms
of argument but instead such moves are purposeful in serving an argumentative
function that may not be otherwise achievable in a particular context with pre-
sumably more ideal forms of argument. Argumentative moves are not merely con-
ventionalized ways of doing things but should be understood as adaptations to the
multiple demands of communication and practical activities.
The characteristics of the act of arguing will be “as open as the variations in
context of activity and forms of expression” (Jacobs 1989: 361). Clearly there will
be conventional forms and features of argument but argument is not limited to
those conventional forms and the conventions are not definitive of what argument
can be like. This is a crucial point that calls attention to (1) how argument is em-
bedded in activities and language use and (2) how disagreement is a source for the
invention of communication practice for managing disagreement.
Disagreement Management is a shift from explaining argument by the con-
ventions of language use to an explanation that recognized conventional pat-
terns of interaction and forms of expression as products of deeper principles of
interaction (Jacobs and Jackson 1989). The focal concept of disagreement space
helps explain the ongoing organization of disagreement around informational and
pragmatic relevance, the role of moves and countermoves in shaping the disagree-
ment space and the development of argumentative potential through interaction,
and the emergence of practices for shaping disagreement space. Disagreement
Management provides a foundation for recognizing how practices and procedures
play a pragmatic role in shaping disagreement within practical activities, even if
not formal argumentative propositions. This will be an important point in explain-
ing the relationship between argument and technology.
The other leading pragmatic theories of argument attempt to specify norma-

tive models about practical reasoning (Walton 1998) and about the conduct of
argumentative discussion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004). Walton’s New
Dialectics essentially focuses on issues of information relevance; that is, the appro-
priate critical questions to resolve through dialogue to make a valid presumptive
argument such as arguments of cause, analogy, or authority. van Eemeren and
Grootendorst’s Pragma-Dialectics essentially focuses on aspects of pragmatic rel-
evance; that is, the valid dialogue moves that will ensure that all doubts to ratio-
nal acceptance of an argument are addressed through dialogue. These theories
are particularly well suited to assessing the rationality of specific moves made by
individuals in a presumed dialogue type or conventional argumentative activity
type. The disagreement management account, by contrast, draws attention to the
construction and maintenance of disagreement space out of practical activity. The
joint responsibility of participants for the shape and direction of the disagreement
space and the consequences for the content, direction, and outcomes of practi-
cal activity can thus become matters of central attention. Joint responsibility will
become another important point in understanding the relationship between argu-
ment and technology.
While disagreement management is not in the first place a normative theory
of argument, its insights have implications for normativity by reframing the is-
sues of normativity around the way moves and counter-moves realize the argu-
mentative potential of discourse (Jackson 2005; Jacobs and Jackson 2006). For
instance, rather than focusing on fallacies as products of individuals represented
in a particular argument, Disagreement Management explains how argumentative
interaction shapes what is taken up and not taken up in the conduct of practical
activity. Disagreement Management opens up new ways to consider the relation-
ship between argument and context and issues of rationality and reasonableness.
What disagreement management draws attention to regarding argument and con-
text is not so easily addressed in Pragma-Dialectics or the New Dialectics. The
rationality of individuals and of particular messages is important but so too is the
rationality of the interaction in managing the disagreement that arises in practical
activity. Argumentative interaction can be more or less well suited to the demands
of practical activity and its enabling conditions (i.e., attitudes and motivations of
the participants, information and power asymmetries). Argumentative activity
can define more or less productive trajectories for practical activity (e.g., the land
development case).
110 Mark Aakhus
2.3 Argument and felicity’s condition
Building on the insights of disagreement management, it becomes apparent that

information relevance and pragmatic relevance are not simply conventionally giv-
en in any circumstance, as so many rules to be followed or so many background
assumptions to be drawn upon, but are matters to be maintained. Contributions
can have multiple meanings and functions relative to actual and potential par-
ticipants. While felicity conditions can resolve semantic and functional ambigui-
ties in interaction, there remains the problem of which felicity conditions are in
play (e.g., Aakhus and Aldrich 2002). As Goffman (1983) points out, a recurring
problem for communication is felicity’s condition — that is, the arrangements that
enable interactants to see each other’s contributions as not strange but within the
range of what is considered acceptable. In the land development case, for instance,
the maintenance of a sense of what they were doing together — felicity’s condi-
tion — framed the informational and pragmatic relevancies in the moment that
kept the discussion on track and mitigated digression. None of this was explicitly
discussed in the course of the meeting but the activity they were engaged in was
negotiated through the participants’ design of their moves and counter-moves.
The participants crafted a disagreement space in the flow of their interaction that
creatively managed the many demands of holding an unofficial, secret meeting
within the broader context of the community conflict. The parties disciplined the
expansion of the disagreement space to explore ways to overcome obstacles to the
development company’s proposal without committing anyone to having actually
made or to have actually accepted a proposal. This preserved a degree of strategic
ambiguity about what exactly they were all doing together in that meeting and
what they were committed to as a result of the meeting. It also narrowed what
argumentation became relative to the broader deliberation in the community.
The maintenance of felicity’s condition happens in the way the parties orient
to each other and thus constrain the possible range of things that could be meant
in saying something. The coordination of a disagreement space relative to a prac-
tical activity shapes the pragmatic force of particular moves and the stock issues
associated with those actions and constructs the grounds over which argumenta-
tion proceeds. This layer of activity around disagreement, which is largely non-
propositional, is a crucial aspect of disagreement management that is rife with
opportunity for shaping deliberation.
Another way to see the point about felicity’s condition is put forward by
Levinson (1979) who argues that by organizing into forms of interactivity people
put constraints on the possible range of things that could be meant in saying some-
thing thus enabling communication to happen. By ratifying or affirming their rela-
tions to each other, participants create and sustain the sense of what it is they are
doing together. Relevance involves not only what is being said and what is being
done in saying something; it also involves what is being jointly performed in say-
ing things to each other. These aspects are at different times mutually reinforcing
and antagonizing to the sense of relevance.
The opportunity for disagreement is found in gaps between what is said and its
fit with the state of affairs, what is said and what is meant, and what is performed
and the ongoing activity. Central to understanding argument in context, beyond
the rationality of individuals and messages, is how the construction of the inter-
action shapes disagreement space and develops argumentative potential relative
to the practical activities where disagreements occur. Thus, in addition to prem-
ises, conclusions, justifications, and refutations, argument analysis must attend to
speech actions, procedures, techniques, rules, and roles involved in articulating
disagreement space from practical activities.
3. Designing disagreement space
An implication of Disagreement Management is that the gaps between claim and

doubt, what is said and what is meant, and what is performed and the ongoing
activity will always be, in principle, an open-ended opportunity for developing
ways to manage disagreement. These gaps are rife with prospects for influenc-
ing what argumentation becomes and its role in shaping the content, direction,
and outcomes of practical activities. Indeed, considerable practical work in society
is directed toward this governance of argument. Aakhus explains that there is a
“class of communication work in societies given to constructing means that regu-
late how argumentation proceeds. Whether these means are found, for example, in
professional practice, communication and information technology, or the routines
of organizations, implicit in these means are [practical] theories for reconstruct-
ing argumentative discourse that invite reflection and development” (2003: 265).
Such work involves the invention of lines of argument and counter-argument but
it also involves the invention of means for gathering people to determine prudent
courses of action. Communication design work is not only concerned with the
content of what is said and the actions performed in saying something but with
how felicity’s condition is maintained.
While communication design work is a natural aspect of human communi-
cation, specialists and systems also perform it as third-party intervention. Such
interventions take on some degree of responsibility for the conduct of interaction
and introduce practical theories of disagreement management. Conceptualizing
communication design work relative to disagreement management further
grounds the claim that technology is not simply a conduit of information and
112 Mark Aakhus
communication for argument but is a form of disagreement management enrolled

in constructing disagreement space relative to particular distributed practical ac-
tivities. Moreover, communication design work provides an important avenue for
further understanding argument in context.
3.1 Communication design work and designs for communication
Design work exploits principles of language and social interaction to bring about
preferred forms of interactivity, while avoiding other forms, for the purpose of
shaping the communication achieved among participants (Aakhus 2007). Design
is focused on adapting interaction to realize particular contents, directions, and
outcomes relative to the multiple goals and demands of the practical activities and
their broader contexts. The knowledge of design work entails understanding the
nature of interaction including how the components of practical activities inter-
relate in ways that enable participants to coordinate content and process. These
components include types of roles, turns, sequences of turns, speech actions, com-
mitment retraction, and goals. Design work involves developing and maintaining
the conditions that enable participants to generate informationally and pragmati-
cally (action/activity) relevant contributions to the practical activity at hand.
A key occasion for design is when practical activities break down over mis-
understanding, disagreements, and such. These breakdowns invite interventions
aimed at repairing the practical activity. Such interventions can take many forms.
One paradigmatic form is the work performed by dispute mediators who assist
disputing parties by fostering a reasoned discussion that can settle, if not resolve,
the differences that are disrupting practical activity in which the disputing parties
are engaged. Mediators do this by asking questions and summarizing the discus-
sion in ways that aid the parties in recognizing ways to overcome the breakdown
they are experiencing (Jacobs and Aakhus 2002). The actions of the mediator prac-
tically reconstruct, from the circumstances at hand, a productive disagreement
space that enables the parties to manage the competing demands of the situation,
their relationship, and their state of knowledge (at least when successful). The re-
construction is neither formally normative nor is it naïve but is instead grounded
in practical theories about what is possible given the circumstances (Aakhus 2003;
Jacobs and Aakhus 2002). The intervention is about constructing interactivity that
deals with the limitations and opportunities afforded by second and third order
conditions, such as the parties’ emotions and self-interests that mitigate willing-
ness to accede to the better argument and to the lack of information or power
differentials that undermine critical openness (see van Eemeren et al. 1993 for a
discussion of these conditions).
Argument typically happens in conditions less than what idealized models

of argument presume. Much design work related to disagreement management
involves making do with the circumstances at hand. This creativity is certainly
an aspect of argument in context that cannot be dismissed. Jacobs and Jackson
(2006: 125) outline three general properties of systems designed to foster reason-
able discussion, such as dispute mediation: (1) systems offer solutions to take into
account “threats to the reasonableness of deliberation [that] often result from
abuses or perversions of basic principles that make communication possible;” (2)
“design solutions are often systemic in nature, adjusting the discussion processes
as a whole and the conditions for discussion rather than the characteristics of indi-
vidual disputants;” or (3) designs “to assure the most reasonable decision-making
feasible can sometimes be quite surprising when considered merely in the abstract.”
These properties recognize the challenges and ironies of the design work involved
in fostering reasonable discussion in less than ideal conditions. These proper-
ties suggest that consideration of the opportunity and opportunism in creating
and sustaining forms of interactivity aimed at handling disagreement in practical
activities is necessary for understanding the relationship between argument and
context. Moreover, argumentation can be described and assessed beyond the ra-
tionality of messages and individuals by examining how forms of interactivity are
constructed and their relevance to the breakdown of practical activities.
Interventions involve (1) some degree of delegation of responsibility for in-
teractivity to the third-party and (2) the introduction of practical theories of how
argument functions in managing disagreement. (Such theories can be more or less
coherent and more or less well instantiated in performance.) It is through these
two aspects of intervention that third-parties exercise influence over the goals of
the interaction, the relations participants take up with each other in the interac-
tion, and the epistemic quality the interaction produces. Taking into account the
delegation of interactional responsibility and practical theories of disagreement
management is an important way to expand the analysis argument in context and
to understand the relationship of technology and argument.
3.2 Practical theories and responsibilities for interaction
Design work intervenes by altering the resources for interaction. The conse-
quences of design work can be seen in the way interventions delegate interactional
responsibility and introduce practical theories of disagreement management
through formality and orchestration. Practical theory is heve used to refer to the
reconstruction of communication practice, following Craig and Tracy (1995), that
articulates the normative yet practical reasoning about communication problems
and solutions (e.g. Aakhus 2001).
114 Mark Aakhus
Formality is a concept from Conversation Analysis that refers to the degree

to which features of interaction (turns, turn-taking, topics, etc.) are pre-allocated
rather than being left to the determination of the participants (Atkinson and Drew
1979). The greater amount and degree of pre-allocation of interactional features
the more formal, such as seen in the difference between a business meeting and a
judicial proceeding. Formality reveals how interaction is arranged relative to par-
ticular goals that involve participants taking on particular relations to each other
that in turn establish the epistemic possibilities for interaction (Silverman 1998;
Drew and Heritage 1992). The degree to which the parties sustain their orientation
to particular procedural rules they institutionalize their talk so that it maintains
particular conditions of felicity and unfolds with a particular rationality.
A related but different concept is orchestration, which refers to a role taken
on in determining when other parties speak and receive attention for what they
are speaking about (Dingwall 1980: 156). Orchestration involves devising ways to
keep participants oriented toward a course of action and in so doing maintains
the principles of relevance that constitute the activity at hand. Orchestration sets
the conditions for participants to reason about situating their contributions to the
purposes at hand. Communication design work, in practice, can involve either the
introduction of formality into interaction or the orchestration of interaction or
both. Communication design encompasses both in the way it arranges the features
of interactivity and sustains the conditions of felicity.
Design work can be described and analyzed in terms of its practical theory of
disagreement management. Analysis of classic third parties, such as dispute me-
diators and meeting facilitators, reveal how third parties design the disagreement
space through formality and orchestration. For instance, Aakhus (2003) found
that dispute mediators handled impasse by focusing the disputants’ attention on
practical matters about their future relationship rather than resolving past differ-
ences. This orchestration of the interaction resulted in a disagreement space that
privileged requests for change over arguments for the status quo. Part of the prac-
tical theory then was that argument should be deliberative in developing plau-
sible courses of action and not forensic in adjudicating what was right or wrong
about past actions. Jacobs and Aakhus (2002) found that dispute mediators’ use of
questions and summaries revealed three different rational models for managing
differences of opinion — critical discussion, bargaining, and therapeutic discus-
sion. Each was a practical theory about managing disagreement and the role of
argument that, in practice, opened up very different ways for parties to purse their
disagreement.
Both studies described the situated behaviors of dispute mediators relative to
what an idealized third-party would do to create a normatively ideal critical dis-
cussion. In particular, how would such an idealized third-party distribute turns,
highlight limitations in what was said, foster appropriate speech acts, and so on.
Rather than evaluating the shortcomings of mediator behavior relative to the ideal-
ization, both studies examined systematic departures from the idealization that, in
turn, indicated situated theories of action and models of interaction implemented
by practitioners in designing disagreement space. The articulation of practical the-
ories of disagreement management makes it possible to assess the trade-offs for ra-
tionality inherent in differing approaches to managing disagreement. Further, the
design of disagreement space can be interpreted and assessed relative to the condi-
tions of the practical activity and circumstances in which disagreement arises.
Third-parties become involved in disputing processes in a variety of ways that
differ in terms of the responsibility they are delegated for handling the disputes.
Black and Baumgartner’s (1983) theory of the third-party distinguishes between
support and settlement roles in a way that helps clarify the delegation of respon-
sibilities for interaction when third-parties intervene on disputes. A settlement
role is taken on when a third-party intervenes between two or more parties with
the aim of enabling the parties to settle their differences. Settlement roles can be
enacted in a variety of ways that differ in the authority of the intervention as in-
dicated by how much control the principals in the disagreement have over the out-
come of the dispute. In dispute mediation, for instance, the third party assists the
disputants’ communication without directly imposing any outcome. This stands in
contrast to a judge who intervenes more authoritatively by structuring the dispute
and rendering an outcome for disputants. Support roles on the other hand refer to
the ways that a third-party offers help to a particular party involved in a conflict.
Supporters differ in the degree to which they act on behalf of a party in a dispute
by providing assistance and taking risks for the party. Informers offer support, for
instance, but take on little risk by providing information or facts for a disputant to
use. Advocates offer support by taking a role in the conflict and acting on behalf of
a disputant while surrogates stand in for the disputant.
Even though argumentation theory typically focuses on the principals in
disagreement, the third parties that become involved in managing the disagree-
ment are consequential for how disagreement is pursued and how it contributes
to the content, direction, and outcomes of the practical activity in which it occurs.
Interventions can vary in the practical theories introduced and the responsibility
taken on. This is the vantage point from which to see how interventions contrib-
ute to what argumentation is made possible — especially the non-propositional
aspects of speech acts, procedures, and such. The relevance of the practical theory
and the degree of responsibility can be described and criticized.
116 Mark Aakhus
3.3 Argument, technology, deliberation
Technologies for communication are better understood, at least for the purposes
of argumentation theory and the analysis of the relation between argument and
context, as communication-information services that, as third-party intervention,
perform communication design work relative to the demands and opportuni-
ties for managing disagreement in the circumstances of some practical activity.
Communication-information services are delegated (or take) responsibility for
aspects of conducting distributed interaction and thus the content, direction, and
outcomes of practical activities. These interventions vary in the degree of respon-
sibility taken on for the content and process of communication and in how the
service aims to design disagreement space. These services are organized around a
practical theory of disagreement management that can be more or less well devel-
oped, more or less coherent, and more or less appropriated into human interaction.
There are a wide-variety of communication-information services in modern
political deliberation that reveal an on-going argumentative entrepreneurialism at
the gaps between evidence and claims, what is said and actions performed, and
actions performed and activities undertaken. Many communication-information
services exist for the purpose of enabling deliberative communication while others
have been appropriated for such purposes. These services make specifications, ei-
ther purposefully or inadvertently, about how argumentation works or how it ought
to work for deliberation. Various groupware enable participants to focus on the
quality of their deliberative process such as group decision support systems (GDSS)
and argument visualization systems for supporting reasoning (e.g., Compendium,
ReasonAble, Aracuria). More contemporary expressions of groupware are found
in uses of the web and social media by organizations and governmental agencies
to manage the crowd around products, services, and policies (Ågerfalk, Aakhus,
and Lind 2010). Large scale science projects that build cyber-infrastructures also
illustrate many concepts originally developed in groupware. Various web-based
forms of threaded discussion have been developed over the past two decades. Some
are platforms dedicated to supporting a wide variety of online groups (e.g., Google
groups, Facebook groups, LinkedIn Groups). Other platforms are specifically inte-
grated to enable discussion about particular matters, such as when media organi-
zations use threaded discussion for reader response to news stories and editorials,
when corporations use social media to generate innovation around products and
services, and when governmental bodies use social media to cultivate engagement
over policies. Chat systems have evolved over the past few decades into wide-scale
platforms such as Twitter but also as more specified implementations meant to
support particular internal groups or work-teams. There has been considerable in-
novation in the uses of ICT to make information available about policy and politics
that have reinvented the role of think tanks and advocacy groups. No doubt there
will be continued creativity digitizing deliberation.
Communication-information service interventions are not external to the
pragmatics of communication and argumentation but part of it. Theories of in-
formation systems and information technology point this out. Goldkuhl and
Lyytinen (1982; Lyytinen 1985) recognized long ago that ICTs are social and lin-
guistic systems that are technically realized. Information systems are bundles of
categories that define roles and relationships among people into particular rela-
tions to each other (Bowker and Star 1999; Star and Ruhleder 1996). ICTs are me-
ta-communicational in the way the design signals actions to be taken, roles to be
taken up, and affords actability (Goldkuhl and Ågerfalk 2002). Mediated platforms
introduce formality and orchestration into interaction by the way the technology
specifies how aspects of interaction can happen. The specifications may be more
or less intentional and reflective but the specifications are aspects that participants
work with or work around when incorporating the technological setting for com-
municative purposes (e.g., Weger and Aakhus 2003).
The pragmatic role of communication-information services in argumenta-
tion is evident in the choices that delegate and take responsibility for aspects of
argumentative interaction — the aim of interaction, the relations participants
take up, and the epistemic possibilities afforded — that are consequential for how
disagreement is managed. These services vary in terms of what the intervention
takes responsibility for and the degree to which responsibility is taken in afford-
ing communication and managing disagreement. An important task for argument
analysis lies in articulating the disagreement management practice evident in the
communication-information service provided. As discussed above, there are two
key inter-related aspects to these interventions: the practical theory of disagree-
ment management and the manner of delegating responsibility for interaction.
Making sense of communication-information services involves articulating
the means and logic for transforming a given way of interacting into a preferred
way of interacting for managing disagreements that arise in the conduct of practi-
cal activities. This involves describing the design specifications for interaction the
communication and information services makes through its actions for designing
disagreement space. Aakhus and Jackson (2005) summarize research from lan-
guage and social interaction that identifies seven key matters about language and
interaction for understanding the specifications a technological implementation
makes about communication (summarized in Figure 1). The design specifica-
tions for interaction involve trade-offs in fitting the preferred form of interactivity
into the routines of the participants while enabling the participants to manage
their differences and reshape the content, direction, and outcomes of the practi-
cal activity in which they are engaged. These trade-offs must also be described by
118 Mark Aakhus
1. Turn-taking formats vary in the methods for generating and displaying relevant
contributions.
2. Participant identity and face concerns affect participation in any interaction format.
3. Speech is a kind of action with collateral commitments.
4. Speech sequences are indefinitely expandable.
5. Coordinated action depends on repair.
6. Communication is subject to culturally shared assumptions about communication.
7. Consequences of design for practice are interactionally emergent.
Figure 1. 7 Key facts about language and social interaction for design (adapted from
Aakhus and Jackson 2005).
considering how the specifications address second order conditions (e.g., involv-
ing willingness to accede to the better argument) and third order conditions (e.g.,
involving asymmetries of resources such as information). Such description aims
to articulate how the service frames the problems to be addressed, the purpose of
the intervention, the orchestration and formalization the interaction for solving
the problems, and the rationale justifying the legitimacy and efficacy of the inter-
vention for the circumstances and practical activity at hand (see Aakhus 2003).
Central to analyzing communication-information services is the articulation of
the practical theory of disagreement management and the responsibility for inter-
action evident in a service’s design proposal for interaction. Some prior research
helps illustrate such analysis.
Practical theories of disagreement management are evident in the formalities
for interaction provided and the orchestration performed. The rational models
dispute-mediators implemented in negotiations between two parties discussed
earlier, revealed practical theories about designing disagreement space. In a paral-
lel fashion, Aakhus (2002a; de Moor and Aakhus 2006) explains how communi-
cation-information services differ in terms of the service’s theory for designing
disagreement space. The formalities for interaction an ICT introduces are resourc-
es the participants can use to orchestrate their interaction to give interactivity a
particular purpose and an underlying rationale about the handling of disagree-
ment. Groupware products (e.g., GDSS, Argument Visualization software) present
different formalities for how interaction should proceed, such as the expression
and response to speech acts, the roles the participants take up relative to what has
been said, and the structure of topics available for discussion. These affordances
and constraints for interaction suggest at least three practical theories for manag-
ing disagreement: funneling, issue-networking, and reputation managing (Aakhus
2002a). For instance, groupware with funneling rationality affords the treatment of
disagreement as signals of the degree of commitment among participants toward
putting a proposal into action while groupware with an issue-networking rational-

ity affords opportunities for correcting claims based on challenges to the claim.
Aakhus’s (2000, 2001, 2013) analyses of the practice of meeting facilitation us-
ing group decision support systems (GDSS), likewise, reveal how communication-
information services, while ostensibly neutral third-party interventions, introduce
practical theories of disagreement management through the orchestration of in-
teraction. A facilitator works in combination with a GDSS to shape the oppor-
tunities for participation and expression of points of view. The facilitation takes
responsibility for aspects of interaction by posing questions, encouraging the de-
velopment of topics, and drawing out differences of opinion. Interviews revealed a
primary orientation among practitioners that argument involves the expression of
preferences and settling differences by achieving “buy-in” more so than argument
involving the making and defending claims about states of affairs (Aakhus 2000,
2013). This perspective guided the specific actions and the overall conduct of their
interventions in designing disagreement space. Argument functioned to create
bargaining more than a discussion approximating critical discussion.
In addition to a practical theory of argumentation, the role that communica-
tion-information services take on varies by the degree of responsibility delegated
and taken on by the communication-information service. What these services
highlight is the potential for division of argumentative labor in the management
of disagreement. Theories of argument often focus on or presume that argumenta-
tion involves only two parties or two positions on issue. That standard di-lectical
view misses the poly-lectical aspects of deliberation (see Lewiński 2010) and thus,
in terms of designing disagreement space, the standard view misses out on how
the task of argumentation can become divided across multiple actors and multiple
activities. Jackson’s (2008) identification of black box arguments in contemporary
policy discussion illustrates the point. Black box argument refers to the devices
specialist communities use to reach conclusions that are then used by others in
decision-making, such as how scientific conclusions enter into policy processes
through peer review or significance testing. The devices that produced the argu-
ment are generally unavailable to the decision-makers for assessment and to open
the black box for assessment undermines the authority of the conclusions pro-
duced by the black box for the deliberation. The key issue is whether and when to
delegate this aspect of the argumentation in deliberation to an outside authority.
Jackson’s analysis points out that deliberation is a workflow that involves many
actors taking responsibility for different informational and pragmatic aspects of
disagreement management.
Argumentative labor can be divided and the various support and settlement
roles that communication-information services take on are indicative of the ways
that argumentative labor is delegated to communication-information services. For
120 Mark Aakhus
instance, Aakhus (1999) analyzed Science Court, which was a mechanism for han-
dling disagreements in policy deliberation related to matters of science on which
those deliberating had no expertise. The mechanism was not an ICT specifically
but it was an information system intended to return a definitive result based on the
input of experts on the particular scientific matter. Policy makers could then con-
tinue their policy deliberation based on accepted scientific factual premises and
reasoning. The Science Court was essentially a mechanism for repairing break-
downs in ongoing deliberation over policy. It performed a communication-infor-
mation service by providing a sequence of primary and preparatory argumentative
activities. Each activity specified features of interaction such as roles, speech acts,
and rules for evidence and commitment retraction for handling a particular argu-
mentation gap in the overall policy activity. Science Court was delegated authority
over settling the scientific disagreement relevant to the policy and a support role in
informing the policy-makers about the best available science on the policy matter.
In terms of its settlement role, the service designed a disagreement space that re-
sembled the normative model of critical discussion. However, implementations of
the design revealed that underlying theory of disagreement management was un-
able to produce credible output to support the policy process but that its design for
disagreement was well suited to the demands of general public inquiry for sense-
making of complex issues. The willingness to delegate authority to Science Court
was minimal in the legislative, regulatory, and public arenas. It offered a settlement
service but could only take a facilitative not adjudicative degree of responsibility in
managing disagreement.
The fact that argumentative labor can be distributed among a range of actors
across a flow of practical activity, the wide range of roles communication-infor-
mation services take on in political deliberation becomes increasingly apparent.
Services are directed at premise-conclusion relations in political argument and
the quality of participation in political deliberation or some combination of the
two. Aakhus (2009; Aakhus and Ziek 2008) offers an initial characterization of
the variety of communication-information services in political deliberation. The
services analyzed aim at designing disagreement space around issues, or potential
issues, regarding the consequence of business enterprise on society and the en-
vironment. The services attempted to take responsibility by aggregating data for
others to use in building arguments and by providing visualizations of complex
data patterns that others can use to articulate invisible trends in the state of knowl-
edge, or by generating arguments for others to use. Such services were preoccu-
pied with premise-conclusions relations in policy argumentation. Other services,
for instance, provided visualizations of ongoing policy disagreements so that oth-
ers can make sense of the ongoing debate or framing services that attempt define
the terms of the policy issue. Such services were preoccupied with the conduct of
deliberation. All of the services identified acted as third parties within local, na-
tional, and global political issues by offering communication-information support
and settlement services that open, expand, direct, and contract the disagreement
space for particular policy issues. Each taking up some action to shape what could
and would become argumentation in the deliberation.
The division of argumentative labor poses challenges for assessing responsi-
bility and accountability for what argumentation becomes. Making sense of this
aspect of argumentative context can be aided by determining the responsibility
for managing disagreement taken on by the communication-information service
when intervening on practical activity, such as exemplified in Figure 2.
The point under development here is that disagreement management practice
extends through ICTs and the information systems of which they are a part. This
is evident, as discussed above, in the formality ICTs introduce into interaction and
the orchestration performed through communication and information services.
ICTs and information systems aim to institutionalize forms of talk and interac-
tion through the design of features for interaction. The potential for analyzing the
role of communication-information services in argumentation and deliberation
is illustrated by briefly considering a case where a communication-information
service was provided to aid deliberation about an important public policy issue.
Aakhus (2002b) analyzed an early use of threaded discussion by a media or-
ganization to foster discussion about the news stories it presented. A televised
news magazine show presented an investigative story about the potential health
consequences of using mobile telephones. A transcript of the investigative story
with further background information about the health effects of cell phones were
posted alongside a space for threaded discussion of the matter. The media organi-
zation’s implementation of ICT is illustrative of the work performed in society to
A: Minimal responsibility primarily procedural intervention

• No strong presumption about the type of argumentative conduct
• Chat, Threaded Discussion, Message Board
B: Moderate responsibility primarily procedural intervention
• Stronger presumptions about the type of argumentative conduct
• Organizational Uses of Social Media to manage the crowd
C: High responsibility involving more than procedural intervention
• Actor/agent provide settlement or support services aimed at shaping the disagreement
space around a policy issue.
• Web and Social Media strategies that circulate data and arguments for others to use
Figure 2. Degree and type of responsibility for disagreement space
122 Mark Aakhus
construct means for argumentation. In this case, the organization acts as a third-
party by constructing a venue where those interested in and who have stake in
the health effects of cell phones could deliberate the matter. Central to supporting
deliberation were the affordances for managing the disagreement provided by the
venue and creating a context of deliberation by the participants.
What was particularly noteworthy in the case was the behavior of the media
organization in designing the disagreement space. Through the threaded discus-
sion the participants called out aspects of the investigative news story by challeng-
ing assumptions, seeking clarification, and disagreeing with the implications of
the investigative story. The media organization’s lack of any response to these oth-
erwise very reasonable call-outs by the discussion board participants made it seem
like any doubts expressed in the forum were between the participants, not between
the participants and the media organization over the veracity of the investigative
news story itself. This became an issue in the threaded discussion as contributors
were looking for the media organization to advance the deliberation by account-
ing for apparent gaps in the investigative report and the informational resources
provided in the venue. The media organization, despite creating the venue, would
not engage even though many of the doubts and disagreements raised by the par-
ticipants about the story were highly relevant and important to the deliberation.
In so doing, the issues pursued became about what the news organization was
covering up and its motivations, rather than joint construction of knowledge and
action relevant to the issue.
In terms of the ideas advanced in this chapter, the participant’s resisted the
media organization’s communication-information service by taking issue with
the intervention’s practical theory of managing disagreement and the nature and
degree of responsibility for interaction taken by the intervention. The media or-
ganization’s support for deliberation made it possible for the participants to dis-
agree but did not allow the participants to expand the disagreement space in the
directions the participants were attempting to take it. Many of the participants
sought explicit engagement with the media organization, at least the authors of
the investigative story, to account for the story’s presumptions and implications.
The orchestration of the interaction fostered an activity of expression of opinion
rather than critical engagement over facts and values. Moreover, the media-orga-
nization’s intervention displays a form of neutrality where the media organization
attempts to remain distant from the substance and outcomes of the discussion
(i.e., like a discussion moderator who simply attempts to make turns available to
anyone who wants to participate). The participants took issue with both aspects
of the intervention and how it framed what counted as normal contributions (and
non-contributions) to deliberation about the matter. They resisted what the inter-
vention contributed to the governance of argument, in particular how it specified
the aim of the activity, the relations available to be taken up among participants,
and the epistemic potential of the argumentation for the practical activity. Their
concerns were about the consequences of the communication-information service
for the interplay of argumentative content and process.
4. Conclusion
A case has been made here that the relationship between argument and technol-
ogy should be defined in terms of the pragmatic role technology plays in the man-
agement of disagreement and not as a mere conduit of communication. Central
to this case is the claim that implementation of ICTs and the development of in-
formation systems should be understood, from an argumentative point of view,
as communication-information services that take responsibility for aspects of in-
teraction that afford communicative possibilities and thus design disagreement
space. These services are built around an often implicit theory of argumentation
and forms of disagreement management practice. The claim follows from the
Disagreement Management theory of argumentation. That account was originally
directed at explaining how argument happens in ordinary conversation, and how
argument happens due to the very principles of language and interaction that
make communication possible. From this starting point, a general pragmatic ac-
count was introduced for understanding the practices of managing disagreement,
and their consequences, wherever these may occur — whether through special-
ized roles, organizations, or information-communication technology. A key con-
sideration is the role communication-information services play in maintaining
felicity’s condition.
So, from the case developed here, it is possible to see how technology can
have a role in governing argument. Moreover, it is possible to see how to account
for speech acts, and aspects of speech acts, that shape argumentative process but
do not translate, at least directly, into argumentatively relevant propositions (e.g.,
premises, conclusions, critical questions, qualifications). It is also possible to see
how to account for procedures, techniques, or rules (i.e., such as found in tech-
nology) that are not propositions in any strict sense but that are consequential
for what becomes argumentation in any setting. In this way, then, the analysis of
deliberation digitized contributes to understanding argument in context.
124 Mark Aakhus
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Argumentation & Advocacy 40 (1): 23–38.
(How) do participants in online
discussion forums create ‘echo chambers’?
The inclusion and exclusion of dissenting voices
in an online forum about climate change
Arthur Edwards
Erasmus University, Rotterdam
This chapter examines the proposition advanced by Sunstein (2001) and other
scholars that political online forums tend to be characterized by in-group ho-
mogeneity and group polarization. The chapter adopts a process view of online
forums and examines discussions within a time perspective. Five discussion lines
on Climategate.nl (a skeptical Dutch online forum on climate change) are inves-
tigated. The research focuses on how participants react to the participation of
dissidents and on the resulting processes of inclusion and exclusion. Climategate.
nl moved in the direction of an ‘echo chamber’ gradually over time. Nevertheless,
the forum was never completely homogeneous. The editors played an active role
in the inclusion and exclusion of dissidents. A counter-steering moderation policy
is needed to keep group polarization and homogenization within certain limits.
Keywords: argumentative community, balkanization, counter-steering

moderation, echo chamber, in-group homogeneity, online discussion forums
1. Introduction
According to the deliberative model of democracy, public deliberation is aimed

at the transformation of private opinions on public issues into viewpoints that
can withstand public scrutiny and criticism (Held 2006). This assumes that citi-
zens engage with opposing points of view rather than seeking to reinforce their
existing points of view. Exposure to conflicting viewpoints fosters political tol-
erance, which includes the capacity to see that both sides in a political contro-
versy have legitimate rationales for their views (Mutz 2002: 122). Several scholars
have investigated the expectation that the internet extends the ‘public sphere’ for
doi 10.1075/bct.76.06edw
128 Arthur Edwards
argumentative discussions, as envisaged by deliberative theory (e.g., Dahlberg

2001; Papacharissi 2002; Kies 2010). Cass Sunstein (2001; 2009) adopts a relatively
skeptical position that has been highly influential within the scholarly literature
concerning online political deliberation. He argues that the domain of online dis-
cussion spaces tends to be fragmented, such that forums attract politically like-
minded people (‘balkanization’). If exposures to competing views are lacking,
balkanization produces ‘echo chambers’ and inevitably leads to group polariza-
tion. As a result, prospects for critical argumentative discussion and opportuni-
ties for finding common ground between different points of views are seriously
diminished. Sunstein (2001: 5–10) holds that the internet facilitates balkanization
because the technology increases the ability of individuals to filter their exposure
to information, thus creating personalized communication environments.
This chapter aims to develop additional insight into homogenization and po-
larization. In order to accomplish this aim, I develop a conceptual and method-
ological framework with three key elements. The first element is contextualization.
Much of the existing empirical research is limited to descriptions of ideological
homogeneity of messages, that is the degree of plurality of the standpoints and ar-
guments expressed in online discussions. Although the findings are inconclusive,
they suggest that contextualization is essential to understanding why homogene-
ity can be found in some forums and not (or less) in others. Secondly, I propose
considering an online forum as an ‘argumentative community’ that is typified by
a shared perspective with regard to the purpose of the discussions and by spe-
cific standards that govern argumentative activity. I proceed from the assumption
that the interaction between mainstream participants and dissidents is a particu-
lar aspect of the processes by which an argumentative community is constituted.
Research on processes of inclusion and exclusion of dissidents can provide ad-
ditional insight into homogenization, along with research on self-selection that
takes place when people choose to participate in a given forum (e.g., Hill and
Hughes 1998). The third element of the framework consists in a methodological
focus on the dynamics of the argumentation practices within online forums. A
process view is helpful for understanding homogenization in addition to static
descriptions of the degree of plurality of messages.
The empirical research focuses on two questions: (1) Which processes of par-
ticipant inclusion and exclusion take place? and (2) How are these processes mani-
fested in communication between participants? The study involves the analysis
of instances of meta-communication, in which participants evaluate their discus-
sions and draw implications with regard to further participation. The object of
the research is the Dutch online forum Climategate.nl, which was established in
November 2009 by two scientific journalists who hold skeptical views on climate
change. The term ‘Climategate’ refers to the controversy following the hacking of
Do participants in online forums create echo chambers? 129
e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in November
2009 (explained below).
Section 2 presents a brief reconstruction of the causal line of reasoning that
underlies Sunstein’s argument on balkanization. In Section 3 I develop the con-
ceptual and methodological framework. Section 4 elaborates the research de-
sign. Section 5 presents the analysis of five discussion lines on Climategate.nl.
Conclusions and implications of this study are discussed in Section 6.
2. Theoretical and empirical exploration
I open this exploration by outlining the causal chain implied in Sunstein’s argument.
Figure 1 presents the basic structure of these causal relationships. After discussing
Sunstein’s argumentation, I provide a short review of empirical research. The main
purpose of this review is to specify the intended contribution of my own research in
this chapter. The discussion also identifies several contextual factors that seem to be
important for understanding homogenization and polarization in online forums.
Sunstein proceeds from the proposition that “there is a natural tendency
to make choices, with respect to entertaining and news, that do not disturb our
preexisting view of the world” (Sunstein 2001: 57). This hypothesis is supported
by literature in the area of political communication (e.g., Huckfeldt and Sprague
1995). Kevin Hill and John Hughes (1998) conducted one of the first investiga-
tions into online forums (Usenet groups and chat rooms) to build upon this litera-
ture. They present a mixed picture but conclude that Usenet “is something people
Filter possibilities of
internet technology
B
- Preference for Self -selection of Discussion process:

opinion reinforcement participants: - Political homo-
- Aversion to opinion - In-group geneity of messages
challenges homogeneity - Group polarization
- Fostering group
A identity C D
- More extreme positions Rationally motivated

- Reduced internal consensus and
diversity dissensus (finding
- Wider gap between ‘common ground’)
opinions E less likely F
Figure 1. Outline of Sunstein’s argumentation about balkanization and group polariza-

tion in political online discussion forums
130 Arthur Edwards
use to reinforce beliefs they have already developed” (Hill and Hughes 1998: 72).
In a study of selective exposure among internet news users, Kelly Garrett (2009)
distinguishes between two psychological mechanisms: the desire for opinion rein-
forcement and the aversion to opinion challenges (see Box A in Figure 1). Garrett’s
research indicates that the two tendencies are not equivalent and that opinion-re-
inforcement plays a more important role than does the avoidance of opinion-chal-
lenging information (see also Kobayashi and Ikeda 2009). These findings seem to
weaken Sunstein’s thesis on balkanization, because they imply that, even if people
prefer to participate in forums with politically like-minded people, they might still
be interested in the participation of at least some people with dissenting opinions.
Participation of opponents constitutes an opportunity to shape their own ideas or
to ventilate their views to the outside world (De Koster 2010: 176).
The core of Sunstein’s argument emerges in an experiment he conducted with
two colleagues involving face-to-face deliberation (Schkade et al. 2007). In the
experiment, 63 American citizens were brought together and assembled into ten
groups, to which the following three issues were assigned: same-sex marriage, af-
firmative action, and global warming. In the design of this experiment, the rela-
tively loose term ‘like-minded people’ refers to ideological positions rather than
to positions on these specific issues. Five groups were established with members
tending toward liberal positions, and five were established with conservative-lean-
ing members. Participants were asked to state their opinions anonymously, both
before and after fifteen minutes of group discussion on each topic. The experiment
yielded three critical findings (see Box E in Figure 1):
1. In almost every group, the positions of the participants became more extreme.
2. The diversity of opinions within the groups became markedly lower.
3. As a result, the discussion widened the gap between liberals and conservatives.
It is quite remarkable that a group discussion of only 15 minutes on a complex
public issue could generate such results. It is unclear, however, whether notions
like ‘more extreme positions’ and ‘group polarization’ provide an adequate account
of what actually happened in these discussions. It could be that the discussion
served to transform privately held opinions into better-articulated points of view
and arguments, which can be seen as a precondition for or the first step towards a
more thorough discussion of the issues at a later stage. Moreover, because Sunstein
and colleagues did not include a heterogeneous group in their experiment, we do
not know whether polarization between liberals and conservatives would also oc-
cur when they engage in a discussion with each other.
It is conceivable that internet technology (Box B) facilitates the causal rela-
tionship of preference for opinion reinforcement with self-selection. Empirical
research on how people actually use the possibilities of the internet for opinion
reinforcement and self-selection is scarce. There is thus little insight into the extent
to which people make choices among specialized websites or use specific tech-
nologies that enable them to filter information. Thomas Johnson and colleagues
(2009) establish that 53% of those who visit blogs for political information seek
blogs that share their points of view, as compared to 22.2% who seek blogs that
challenge their points of view.
This chapter focuses on the relationship between Boxes C and D (see Figure 1).
According to Sunstein (2001), in-group homogeneity generates group polariza-
tion, particularly if the members consider themselves as part of a group that has
a shared identity or common interest, such as opponents of high taxes, or advo-
cates of animal rights. Their discussions are likely to move them in quite extreme
directions (Sunstein 2001: 70). In a study of online neo-Nazi discussion forums,
Magdalena Wojcieszak (2010) highlights the social mechanisms in online forums
that can further these tendencies. The first mechanism is informational influence,
whereby members accept the arguments of other participants as valid evidence.
Online groups may also increase polarization and extremism by exerting norma-
tive pressure. Affinity among members in homogeneous groups might encourage
them to adjust their opinions to the views prevalent within the group. Empirical
evidence on the degree of plurality of opinions and arguments expressed in on-
line discussions is, however, inconclusive. Anthony Wilhelm’s research on political
Usenet newsgroups during the 1996 presidential campaign in the United States,
revealed that the exchange of opinions between message posters with diverse view-
points occurred infrequently (Wilhelm 2000). From a list of 57 self-identified po-
litical forums, Wilhelm randomly selected six forums for content analysis. More
than 70% of messages were relatively uniform in their expressed viewpoint. Other
investigations, however, point in another direction. Liza Tsaliki (2002) examined
sixteen online discussions in Greece, the Netherlands, and Britain during various
periods in 2000 and 2001. She found great variation in viewpoints expressed by
debaters. Christian Fuchs (2006) examined a discussion board regarding national
politics on the Austrian online forum politik-forum.at. He concludes that, in a vast
majority of postings (84.1%), no clear identification with particular political ideol-
ogies or parties could be found (Fuchs 2006: 16). The findings of Tsaliki and Fuchs
seem to point to the importance of the institution hosting the debate, including a
quality newspaper (The Guardian in Tsaliki’s four British discussion threads) and
an independent individual host (in the Austrian case). In an analysis of a forum of
the Italian Partito Radicali, an anticlerical, liberal party, Raphaël Kies (2010: 138)
concludes that, although the forum tends to be used by members and sympathizers
of the radical community, these “do not lead to a homogenization and polarization
of opinions” (his italics). He suggests that this may be a consequence of the great
political openness and taste for polemical debates typical of the Italian Radicals.
132 Arthur Edwards
This short review of research findings refutes the idea that online forums
necessarily function as echo chambers for politically like-minded people. On the
contrary, the results point to the importance of specific contextual characteristics.
Kies (2010) mentions several of these factors. One group of factors involves the
nature of the initiators or the institution hosting the debate (e.g., newspaper, po-
litical party, governmental institution, independent host), its ideological orienta-
tion, and communicative culture. Another group of factors involves the design of
the online forums (e.g., the moderation policy; see Wright and Street 2007), and
what Kies refers to as the pursued ‘external impact’ of the discussion. This factor
aligns with Marcin Lewiński’s (2010) distinction between online forums that are
aimed at decision-making and those that are aimed solely at opinion-formation.
Kies (2010: 108) hypothesizes that forums that are aimed at exercising influence
on decision-making are less prone to homogenization, because the possibility of
exercising political influence will be a strong motive for all persons who have a
particular interest in the issues to express an opinion. My conclusion is that con-
textualization is crucial to the understanding of online discussions. The literature
review suggests several contextual factors that have to be taken into account. In the
next section they are brought together within a conceptual framework.
3. Political online forums as argumentative communities
The concept of an ‘argumentative community’ can be used for charting various

contextual as well as internal factors impinging on political online discussions.
Raymie McKerrow (1990) has elaborated a model of argumentation from a com-
munity perspective:
That is, communities are typified by the specific rules which govern argumenta-
tive behaviour, by social practices which determine who may speak with what
authority, and by their own ‘display’ of these rules and social practices in response
to challenges from within or outside the community. (1990: 28)
McKerrow subdivides argument communities according to primary context (i.e.,

personal, social, technical, and philosophical communities) and secondary con-
text, which refers to a specific domain (e.g., law or medicine). He also distinguish-
es a ‘generic’ context, which refers to allegiance or opposition to a nation, state,
or class. Within the primary context, McKerrow mentions the social community
which refers to argumentation between individuals who inhabit the public sphere
of discourses in which collective preferences about societal problems are formed
(Habermas 1962/1989). In other words, McKerrow’s concept of social community
involves a political community of citizens. The (Dutch) public sphere provides a
contextualization for the online forum Climategate.nl within the primary context.
The issue domain of climate change (McKerrow’s secondary context) is charac-
terized by deep normative controversies in terms of values, belief systems, and
attitudes towards risks, in addition to a high level of uncertainty regarding the
available knowledge. The ‘climate skeptics’ (to whom the initiators of Climategate.
nl belong) share an oppositional orientation to the climate policies pursued by
national and international governmental actors (generic context).
The argumentative community concept can be related to the concept of ar-
gumentative activity types existing within the pragma-dialectical theory of argu-
mentation (van Eemeren et al. 2010; van Eemeren 2011). The term ‘argumentative
community’ refers to a sociological concept that involves concrete social systems
embedded within specific temporal and spatial settings. ‘Argumentative activity
type’ refers to a concept within the study of argumentation. Frans van Eemeren and
colleagues (2010: 128) define argumentative activity types as “generally recognized
empirical entities of observable communicative practices that share certain basic
goals and conventions.” They mention parliamentary debates, legal indictments,
and internet forums as examples of argumentative activity types. Although the two
concepts are different and have different disciplinary origins, they can comple-
ment each other in empirical research. The concept of argumentative activity types
can inform the sociological analysis of an argumentative community by indicating
how argumentation stages can be distinguished, or by suggesting typical rules for
argumentative conduct or other relevant frameworks. For instance, in the context
of the argumentative activity type of internet forums, Lewiński (2010: 156–157)
observes that arguers tend to outsource the defense of their perspectives to pur-
portedly authoritative online resources. Providing links is an important norm of
conduct in online discussions. This shifts the emphasis from the acceptability of
the arguments used to the acceptability of the authority of the sources. The con-
cept of argumentative communities can inform the pragma-dialectical analysis
of online discussions by indicating relevant community aspects. An example in
discussions about climate change concerns the prominence of the authority ar-
gument. The credentials of specific scientific sources provide an important yard-
stick by which participants in the climate change debate commonly evaluate each
other’s contributions.
The application of the argumentative community concept aligns well with
the ‘virtual community’ notion, which has become commonplace in the study of
online forums. In a review of the literature on the ‘online community question’,
Willem de Koster (2010) observes that most studies are directed toward or de-
pendent upon specific conceptualizations of “what a community is.” This can lead
either to essentialist approaches to the conceptualization of community or to di-
chotomous research outcomes, following the logic that a particular entity does or
134 Arthur Edwards
does not constitute a community. De Koster (2010: 9) prefers to use community as

a ‘sensitizing concept’, in order “to keep an open eye for the different meanings that
online interaction may have for different users.”
In my research, I take a further step away from the essentialist approach by
adopting a process view of virtual communities. With the exception of the lit-
erature on ‘communities of practice’, this approach is rare. A process approach
allows for the contextualization of online discussions within a time perspective.
Communities are constantly reproducing themselves. In this process, their shared
identities, purpose, and norms are constantly reformulated. Newcomers move
from being peripheral members to become active contributors (Lave and Wenger
1991), although the opposite may occur as well.
The next step is to identify the standards for argumentative activity that are
shared within an argumentative community. I consider the standards to involve
the following: (1) the acceptability of the propositional content of argumentation,
(2) the authority of the arguer and sources, and (3) the norms for argumenta-
tive conduct. For the case study presented in this chapter, the relevant argumenta-
tive communities are the skeptical online discussion forums on climate change.
Skeptical websites include those that are relatively detached and science-based
(e.g., climateaudit.org), as well as sites that are more popular in tone (e.g., wattsup-
withthat.com). Climate skeptics deny that the problem of climate change is serious
enough to call for costly mitigation policies. Various lines of argumentation can be
used to support this point of view. For example, some skeptics deny that significant
global warming has taken place at all. Others acknowledge the reality of global
warming but argue that it is not anthropogenic; yet others acknowledge that it is
(partly) anthropogenic, but argue that the climate system’s sensitivity to green-
house-gas emissions is relatively low.1 According to Elizabeth Malone (2009), vari-
ous ‘families of argument’ can be identified within the climate change debate. She
suggests that the credentials and standing of the arguer are likely to influence the
reception of the argumentation by the audience. Within the debate on climate
change, the authority, credibility, and trustworthiness of sources are often strongly
contested. The communicative culture in both camps is highly adversarial (Ereaut
and Segnit 2006, 2007). This characteristic has a clear impact on argumentative
conduct, leading to ad hominem attacks and other violations of the rules of critical
discussions (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992).
Figure 2 provides an overview of the external and internal factors that I con-
sider to be involved in processes of the inclusion and exclusion of participants.
All of the contextual factors are related to the extra-linguistic context of online
1. For an overview of the stock issues in the climate change debate, see Malone (2009) and
Dessler and Parson (2010).
External factors: context Internal factors: elements

constituting argumentative
communities
Macro context [constant re-interpretation of:]
- Specific public sphere (e.g.,at thenational level) and its - Purpose of discussions
institutional conventions
- Issue domain
Meso context
- Group of people with a shared identity, interest or similar - Acceptability of arguments

points of view
- Communicative culture within this group of people
- Hosting institution and its communicative culture - Authority of arguers and sources
Micro context
- Pursued impact on political decision-making - Norms for argumentative conduct

- Forum design, including technical design (e.g., blog with
editorials) and moderation policy
- Position of discussion in the life-cycle of the forum
Figure 2. Internal and external factors impinging upon political online discussions
political discussions. For this reason, the distinctions between the macro, meso,
and micro contexts are different from the distinctions described by van Eemeren
(2011), although there is overlap on the macro level on which van Eemeren’s
analysis is concentrated. On this level, he mentions deliberation as a genre of com-
municative activity in the political domain, which includes the public sphere.
4. Research design
In this section I explain the selection of the online forum Climategate.nl, the selec-
tion of specific discussion lines, and the method of analysis.
The online forum Climategate.nl

In the period between November 2009 and February 2010, two ‘focusing events’
(Kingdon 1984) occurred within the international arena of climate politics. On
20 November 2009, several thousand e-mails and other documents belonging
to researchers of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Institute were
copied to various locations on the internet. This occurred several weeks before
the Copenhagen Summit on climate change. The hacking incident and its af-
termath came to be known as the ‘Climategate affair’. In late January 2010, one
136 Arthur Edwards
month after the Copenhagen Summit, an error regarding the meltdown of the
Himalayan glaciers was identified in the 2007 assessment report published by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Other errors in the report
were brought to light as well. The publicity about the e-mail hacking incident and
especially about the errors in the IPCC report had important political effects in
the Netherlands. The prevailing view among the policymakers was that these er-
rors would seriously damage their public line of defense regarding the scientific
basis of climate policy. During the heat of public controversy, the Ministry respon-
sible for climate policy commissioned an investigation regarding the discussions
on Dutch online forums in the period February-March 2010. This investigation
revealed that the online discussions at that time were characterized by strong po-
larization. Moreover, the online debate seemed to exhibit a high degree of bal-
kanization. According to the researchers, protagonists and antagonists were hardly
able to meet each other at all (Politiek Online, 2010). The discussions were marked
by strong distrust in government and science.
Shortly after the e-mail hacking incident, the Climategate.nl forum was estab-
lished. The initiators, Marcel Crok and Hajo Smit, were two science journalists
with expertise on climate change. In their mission statement, they argued that the
e-mails gave the impression that a worldwide ‘team’ of influential climate research-
ers had manipulated data, excluded skeptics from the scientific literature, and
been unwilling to share their measurements and software programs with skeptics,
despite the Freedom of Information Act in the UK:
Our mission is therefore to provide daily reports — in Dutch — on the conse-
quences of Climategate […] We will attempt to surprise our readers with original
analyses, combined with references to articles in the scientific literature, for-
eign media and the many climate-related blogs and websites that report about
Climategate. With the reaction option, we would also like to provide a platform
for a respectful and fruitful discussion.
A contextualization of Climategate.nl indicates why this online forum is an in-

teresting case in view of the research aims. At the macro-level, the forum can be
placed within the Dutch public sphere. Although climate change is a global issue,
the initiators explicitly aim to address the Dutch-speaking public. Above, I already
indicated the deep normative and empirical controversies that characterize the is-
sue domain of climate change. At the meso-level, the editorial team can be equated
with the hosting institution. Although all of the editors are climate skeptics, who
share a highly adversarial communicative culture, the interviews conducted with
the two initiators indicate that they adopt different orientations towards the fruit-
fulness of discussions between ‘skeptics’ and ‘alarmists’, and that they have differ-
ent styles of verbal communication. In the micro-context, Climategate.nl belongs
to the argumentative activity subtype of online discussions that are aimed solely at
opinion formation. With regard to the design of the forum, several discussion rules
were introduced in June 2010. This contextualization suggests that Climategate.nl
will be marked by inherent tensions. Contextual factors at the macro- and meso-
level seem to make it prone to group polarization and homogenization. On the
other hand, if the aim expressed in the mission statement, to provide a platform
for a respectful and fruitful discussion is elaborated in the moderation policy, this
would constitute a counter-steering factor at the micro-level. The empirical re-
search should reveal how this tension developed in the course of discussions.
Data selection
The data selection covers the period of December 2009 through May 2011. The
initial selection of editorials and ensuing discussion lines (totaling more than
1,000) included the first three months and the last three months of this period, as
well as five months selected alternately from the intervening period. Within this
selection of 11 months, a further selection was made in order to include editori-
als written by the two initiators of the website and one other prominent editor,
in proportion to their share in the total number of editorials. The editorials are
archived in groups of about one week. In most cases, the editorial that had elicited
the greatest number of reactions, generally between 20 and 50, was selected for
inclusion in the sample. This procedure generated a sample of 36 discussion lines.
The final sample of five was composed by selecting the discussion lines in which
(a) a discussion had taken place between participants adhering to alarmist and
skeptical orientations and (b) meta-communication had taken place in which the
participation of one or more participants was thematized. The distribution of the
fragments over the entire period is as follows:
Fragment A: 8–12 December 2009
Fragment B: 17 January–3 February 2010
Fragment C: 14–21 June 2010
Fragment D: 18–21 April 2011
Fragment E: 27 April–2 May 2011
In order to gather background information, interviews were conducted with the
two initiators of Climategate.nl.
Method of analysis
As indicated in the introduction, this research focuses on two questions: (1) Which
processes of participant inclusion and (self-)exclusion take place? and (2) How are
138 Arthur Edwards
these processes manifested in communication between participants? The first re-

search question is elaborated in the following three sub questions:
1.1 Who are the participants in the discussion, particularly in terms of their view
on climate change, and what are the main topics?
1.2 How do participants evaluate the discussion, and which implications do they
draw with regard to further participation (self-exclusion, exclusion or inclu-
sion)?
1.3 How are the editors involved in this process?
The second question will be dealt with by answering the following two sub ques-
tions:
2.1 How do participants refer to elements that constitute an argumentative com-
munity (specified in Table 2)?
2.2 How are the editors involved in this process?
For the analysis of the selected discussion lines, a combination of content analy-
sis and argumentation analysis is used. Content analysis is used for identifying
the main elements that are implicated in the five sub questions. In the analysis I
will directly link back to these questions. Argumentation analysis is used for the
analysis of how norms for argumentative conduct are thematized by participants.
I follow the perspective developed by Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst
(1992), who analyze fallacies as violations of rules for critical discussion.
5. Analysis
Fragment A: 8–12 December 2009

This discussion line opens with an editorial by Marcel Crok discussing the hostile
response of the international climate community to McIntyre’s criticism of the
famous ‘hockey stick curve’.2 The participants in this discussion (20 reactions) in-
clude the two primary editors of Climategate.nl, three other skeptical participants,
and one other participant, Ernst Schrama, who defends the alarmist position
(question 1.1). Schrama is a researcher at Technical University Delft and is special-
ized in satellite measurements. He strongly rejects the idea that the hacked e-mails
revealed a plot by climate scientists to fight the skeptics. The discussion further
centers on the issue of whether the existence of the greenhouse effect (which can
2. The hockey stick curve is a climate reconstruction that depicts the climate in the twentieth
century as unusually warm in comparison to preceding centuries. The Canadian mathematician
McIntyre and the economist McKitrick raised questions with regard to its validity.
be proved in a laboratory) warrants the proposition that carbon dioxide emissions

cause global warming. The discussion appears to become slightly polarized. At one
point, Schrama comments:
I thought that I was providing information, but the debate is quickly degenerating
into the ad hominem form. It is only a tiny step away from personal threats and
other misery. I prefer not to visit this website anymore.
Editor Smit then intervenes:

It would be a pity if you were not to return to this forum. In this debate, we espe-
cially need people like you, who combine passion and knowledge.
Smit continues by providing an extensive argumentation for why the existence of

the greenhouse effect says nothing about global warming. The discussion is con-
cluded by participant Woedende Kok with the following post directed at Schrama:
I’ve never claimed to be Herman van Veen [a Dutch singer and cabaret artist
known for his sweet and mild-tempered texts, AE], but fair is fair. You were also
quite eager to hurl pejoratives with your Titulaartjes and ‘Oompjes’ [against the
skeptics, AE].
The substance of this fragment, which took place about two weeks after the start of
Climategate.nl, is straightforward. The discussion centers on two basic themes: the
integrity of climate scientists and the relationship between the greenhouse effect
and global warming (question 1.1). A Dutch climate scientist, clearly a dissident
in this forum, feels snubbed by other participants and announces that he intends
to leave the forum — an intention directed at self-exclusion (question 1.2). Editor
Smit tries to restrain him from acting upon his intention by praising the (expect-
ed) quality of Schrama’s participation. This intervention, directed at inclusion, is
clearly in line with the mission of Climategate.nl (question 1.3). In expressing his
intention to leave the forum, Schrama refers to rules of argumentative conduct,
particularly to the ad hominem and ad baculum fallacies. In his post, Woedende
Kok uses a typical tu quoque attack (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992: 111).
He attempts to show a contradiction between Schrama’s reproach that he is being
attacked personally and his own words in engaging the skeptics (question 2.1). The
editors are not involved in this discussion about discussion rules (question 2.2).
Fragment B: 17 January–3 February 2010

This discussion line opens with an editorial by Hajo Smit commenting on the
Climategate debate in the Dutch House of Representatives. Smit criticizes the
GreenLeft party spokesperson, who had compared climate policy to fire insurance.
140 Arthur Edwards
Smit uses the word ‘fraud’ with respect to climate science, but in a context of prob-
ability calculation: “Is it possible to calculate the premium we must pay for the
chance that climate policy is based entirely on the fraudulent practices of a small
group of climate scientists?” Participants in this discussion (44 reactions) include
three editors, six other people who sympathize with the editors’ orientation to
the Climategate affair, one participant (Remco van Ek) who criticizes the edito-
rial line, and two participants with neutral contributions (question 1.1). Van Ek
accuses the editors of ‘misplaced rabble-rousing’. In his reaction, editor Smit refers
to the initiators’ aims:
As long as donations are coming in and a broad majority of the visitors reacts
enthusiastically and constructively, we surmise that we occupy a valuable niche
in the media landscape. […] You can say many things about this website, but not
that we do not offer our participants much room to color situations and events in
different ways. In most cases, this results in interesting discussions. I urge you to
make up your mind. If this site is of value to you, please participate constructively.
If not, please just move on.
Later in this discussion, Van Ek argues that his opponents fail to explicate the
substantive arguments underlying their criticism of mainstream climate science.
He uses the word ‘fraud’ in his reconstruction of their standpoint. In addition, Van
Ek accuses the skeptics of cherry-picking in their publicity about the hacked e-
mails. Both camps ask their opponents to substantiate their claims, and each camp
blames the other for evading the burden of proof. For example, in a discussion
with Jeroen, van Ek observes:
You are unable to compile a Top 3 list that could prove the existence of purposeful
scientific fraud. You are also unable to react to the clear counter-argument that
climate denialists and other Climategate fans are involved in cherry-picking.
Jeroen replies as follows:

In an earlier reaction, another blogger urged you to provide evidence to support
your proposition regarding ‘cherry-picking by skeptics’. Up to this point, I have
seen nothing. It seems that you are engaged in a personal fight by posing ques-
tions without providing substantive reactions to the counter-questions posed by
others. In legal practice (as well as in science, at least in my opinion), the rule is
that ‘whoever asserts a fact must prove it’ […]
Editor Crok intervenes with a post directed at Van Ek, which begins as follows:
Your presence here is useful, because up to this point, most of the people who have
reacted have been those who agree with most of the editorials. Discussion keeps
us sharp, and it might lead to adjustment of the editorial formula.
Editor Smit inserts a reaction with more irony:

Remco: […] I’m sorry, but it seems to me that you keep falling back into Real-
climate clichés.3 I haven’t seen anything that is truly original. I’m still waiting. I
also wonder why you are following a website ‘that isn’t all that serious’ [van Ek’s
words, AE] so closely. At any rate, make yourself at home … perhaps someday
we’ll hear something new and truly noteworthy from you …
Crok continues with a reaction to van Ek’s use of the word ‘fraud’:
Fraud is a legal term and difficult to prove. Mann [a climate scientist, AE] has sub-
stantially manipulated data with his hockey stick, but McIntyre has never called
this fraud. I hope that I didn’t use the term fraud in my editorials. If I did, I should
delete it.
Earlier in the discussion, editor Smit also distanced himself from the use of the
word ‘fraud’ by providing the following specific formulation of the purpose of
Climategate.nl: “Our aim is purely to examine whether the hacked e-mails and
everything that happened in the aftermath point to fraud and corruption or not.”
In a long reaction, van Ek explains that he sees no difference between ‘substantial
manipulation’ and ‘fraud’. He insists that the skeptics continue to deny the results
of scientific research that are published in peer-reviewed journals, and that they
are engaged in a purposeful disinformation campaign. Crok finally formulates the
following invitation:
I hereby invite you to write a guest blog in which you prove this. Take a skeptic
(for example, Soon, McIntyre, or Michels) and make it clear which abuses are at
issue and how these abuses have led to faulty knowledge. Agreed?
In this complex discussion line the discussion centers on the significance of the
Climategate affair. However, the purpose and possible bias of the editorials and
discussions forum are thematized as well (question 1.1). Participant van Ek
and editor Smit exchange different evaluations of Climategate.nl (question 1.2).
Implications with regard to further participation are not raised by the critic him-
self (as in Fragment A) but by the two initiators of Climategate.nl (questions 1.2
and 1.3). Crok’s reaction on this issue constitutes a welcome on rational grounds
(“Discussion keeps us sharp”). His reaction reflects De Koster’s reconstruction of
the considerations of ‘concerned citizens’ with regard to the participation of out-
siders: an opportunity for deliberation that enables these citizens to shape their
own ideas and arguments (De Koster 2010). Smit confronts van Ek with his own
intentions (“make up your mind”). In spite of the critical and somewhat sarcastic
undertone of Smit’s reactions, they still constitute a kind of welcome, i.e. an act of
3. Realclimate.org is a blog of climate scientists who belong to the ‘alarmist’ camp.
142 Arthur Edwards
inclusion, although the possibility of self-exclusion is subtly raised as well (“If this
site is of value to you, please participate constructively. If not, please just move on”).
With regard to research question 2.1, the core element of an argumentative
community that is thematized are (again) the norms for argumentative conduct,
particularly the norm which centers on the burden of proof. Van Eemeren and
Grootendorst (1992) discuss the practice of evading and shifting the burden of
proof as fallacies in the distribution of discussion roles. Non-mixed disputes in-
volve questioning a particular standpoint (either positive or negative) with re-
gard to a proposition. In contrast, mixed disputes involve questioning both a
positive and a negative standpoint regarding the proposition (van Eemeren and
Grootendorst 1992: 17). In a non-mixed dispute, it is necessary to establish wheth-
er the protagonist is guilty of evading the burden of proof. In mixed disputes,
however, the problem involves “the order in which the two parties must acquit
themselves of their burden of proof ” (Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992: 121). The
situation in this fragment is even more complicated, as it seems to represent a
‘multiple mixed dispute’, in which both a positive and a negative standpoint relat-
ing to two propositions are questioned:
– Proposition 1: Mainstream climate scientists are guilty of fraud
+/p1, −/p1
– Proposition 2: Skeptics are guilty of cherry-picking and other abuses
+/p2, −/p2
Although neither negative standpoint is made explicit, the context of this dis-
cussion line indicates that participants can be held to them. The situation is fur-
ther complicated by the fact that both editors deny that they have endorsed the
use of the word ‘fraud’ in Proposition 1. If van Ek insists upon the use of this
word, he could have been held liable for the straw man fallacy. Van Eemeren and
Grootendorst (1992: 121) explain that the problem of the order of acquitting the
burden of proof is difficult to solve: “Often, each party makes an attempt to force a
decision and lay the burden of proof at the door of one of the parties.” In my view,
this occurs in the last post of this discussion line, in which Crok invites van Ek to
write a guest blog in providing evidence to support Proposition 2 (question 2.2). I
conclude that, as in fragment A, the thematization of further participation is inex-
tricably linked with the thematization of norms for argumentative conduct. In this
fragment, the editors are heavily involved in this process.
Fragment C: 14–21 June 2010

This discussion line opens with an editorial by Hajo Smit containing a favorable
discussion of a critical paper about the IPCC. Participants in this discussion (76
reactions) include editor Smit and 13 other individuals. Several of the participants
(@anoniem and at least three others) apparently adhere to alarmist positions in
the climate debate (question 1.1). The discussion begins with a statement by Smit
declaring that a reaction posted by @anoniem has been deleted, as it constitutes a
purely personal attack. Several other participants take up for @anoniem, although
they advise the poster to remain polite. In a later post (which was not deleted), @
anoniem points out: “I don’t think I’m any more impolite than Hajo’s Fox News
style of journalism. But, yeah, he’s the censor here…” The discussion soon shifts to
the supposed bias and tone of voice in Smit’s editorials. One participant, Paul van
Egmond, indicates that he is dropping out “for the time being”:
Perhaps Climategate.nl will consider my decision such a great loss that it will seize
the opportunity to provide an honest and balanced picture of the climate debate.
Van Egmond is indeed a regular participant in online debates about climate

change. Editor Smit acknowledges that the editorial team had not published any
explicit web-etiquette policy. He also refers to the absence of Marcel Crok [who
represents the more nuanced voice in the team, AE], who is busy writing a book.
Finally, Smit extends challenges to write guest blogs.
An important theme in the discussion concerns the credentials of authors and
spokespeople in the international climate debate, including Hulme (2009) (a criti-
cal climate scientist and one of the authors of the paper on the IPCC) and several
skeptical American and Dutch bloggers. One participant distinguishes between
the degree of authority (generally conferred to scientists) and the relative trust-
worthiness (or untrustworthiness) of bloggers and other discussants (question
1.1). Later in the discussion, Neven intervenes. Neven is a regular participant who
supports the alarmist position and one of the few to accept the invitation to write a
guest blog. His first guest blog was published on June 13, only one day before this
discussion began. In an extensive post, Neven first addresses the theme concerning
the credentials of spokesmen in the international climate debate. Subsequently, he
goes into the orientation of Climategate.nl and concludes as follows:
With this website, you are clearly answering the demand in the Netherlands for a
semi-neutral site where people can engage in discussion about climate and pol-
icy. […] If you were to dream of becoming the WUWT or ClimateDepot of the
Netherlands — and if you were to succeed in doing so — you would throw all of
this away.4 I have lately begun […] to feel increasing regret for spending my in-
ternet time and energy reading this forum. If the alarmists are chased away, there
will be nothing left but an echo chamber. […] Instead of progressing, this site is
deteriorating on this important point.
4. WattsUpWithThat.com and ClimateDepot.com are two popular skeptical websites.

144 Arthur Edwards
Six months after the start of Climategate.nl, the discussion about the quality of
this online forum seems to become more intense. Editor Smit’s decision to delete
a post of @anoniem elicits a discussion in which the forum’s purpose as well as
norms for argumentative conduct are thematized (in particular, again, the ad ho-
minem fallacy) (questions 2.1 and 2.2). This discussion about the forum’s quality is
also conducted against the backdrop of a discussion about the authority and trust-
worthiness of discussants and sources (question 2.1). Neven appears to be using
his own position as a regular and constructive alarmist participant by blowing the
whistle. In the first two sentences of his post, he thematizes the forum’s purpose.
He provides a critical evaluation of how Climategate.nl has developed in the course
of time (question 1.2). The further participation of alarmists is at stake. Neven uses
the term ‘echo chamber’ and refers to the fact or possibility that “the alarmists are
chased away.” He even seems to hint at the possibility of self-exclusion (“…feel
increasing regret for spending my internet time and energy reading this forum”.).
One participant (van Egmont) decides to leave the forum (question 1.2). Editor
Smit tries to defend himself and urges for guest blogs, which can be interpreted
as a gesture of inclusion (question 1.3). Within the sample of five discussion lines,
this discussion seems to constitute a turning point!
Fragment D: 18–21 April 2011

This thread opens with an editorial by Hajo Smit reporting on the weakening
position of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, particularly with regard
to the issue of a ‘green economy’. In this discussion (25 reactions), the regular
visitor and alarmist Neven posts critical comments on Smit’s editorial. In ad-
dition to editor Smit and Neven, seven other visitors participate, all of whom
support Smit’s argumentation (question 1.1). Smit intervenes in this discussion
with a blog post expressing doubts concerning the value of entering into discus-
sion with alarmists:
It remains very clear to me that Kuhn was absolutely right that any discussion
between believers from Camp A and believers from Camp B is impossible […] As
I’ve argued before, I do not look forward to bantering back and forth with the likes
of you […] In too many cases, we have praised you — as far as I am concerned,
wrongly. The same ‘Get lost!’ with which I have personally chased others away
is just as applicable to you. I’d rather see 10 good reactions from like-minded
people than to waste all this energy with idiots (as seen purely subjectively from
our camp) like you. I will see to it that you will behave as a guest; otherwise, I will
have you blocked.
Ten months after Neven expressed his concerns about alarmists being chased
away, he seems to become a victim himself! Other participants sympathize with
Smit’s statement, but several make additional comments. Scarface, for instance,
introduces an instrumental argument:
Types like Neven are spoiling the atmosphere on this blog. But believe me; a ran-
dom visitor to this blog will be more impressed by well-supported anti-AGW
[Anthropogenic Global Warming, AE] commentaries than they will be by 15 like-
minded people posting over-the-top anti-AGW propositions.
Tinstaafl advances a line of argumentation that emerges regularly in debates on

climate change, referring to the ideological life-style perspective:
People like Neven are clearly proving how the Green Taliban works and how life
in a green eco-socialist state would be if he and his sort were to run the country.
[…] It is therefore good for him to have the occasional opportunity to display his
uncompromising eco-nagging.
Smit evaluates the discussions, thereby thematizing the forum’s purpose by arguing
that he has lost his faith in the fruitfulness of discussions with the alarmist camp
(question1.2). Subsequently, he executes a maneuver of exclusion with the state-
ment “The same ‘Get lost!’ with which I have personally chased others away is just
as applicable to you” which can be interpreted as an indirect directive to leave the fo-
rum (questions 1.2 and 1.3). In terms of elements of an argumentative community,
this act of near-exclusion is justified by Smit and discussed by other participants in
reference to the purpose of the discussions on Climategate.nl (questions 2.1 and 2.2).
Fragment E: 27 April–2 May 2011

This thread opens with an editorial by Hajo Smit calling attention to a new climate
blog. It presents a top-ten list of physical facts that (according to the blog’s editor)
provide incontrovertible evidence that global warming is occurring. Smit provides
a link in which ‘a complete rebuttal’ of these facts is provided. The authors of this
rebuttal belong to the editorial team of the skeptical website slayingtheskydragon.
com. In this discussion (31 reactions), one participant criticizes the tone in the de-
bate, asking, “How can any respect develop between alarmists and skeptics in this
way?” (question 1.1). Editor Zeilmaker responds somewhat sarcastically by point-
ing out that this participant [obviously a regular visitor, AE] is making a judgment
that does not align with ‘the epistemic values of this blog’:
We have already reached the conclusion that his presence here is not appreciated.
Thus far, however, he seems incapable of reading the Dutch language. We there-
fore feel obliged to use expletives that do justice to the sincere emotions that his
146 Arthur Edwards
persistence is evoking among many regular visitors: take your phony good man-
ners and piss off [in Dutch: rot op] […]
However, some prominent skeptics intervene in this discussion with some criti-
cism. Hans Erren, a Dutch geophysicist and a moderate climate skeptic, fiercely
attacks the rebuttal in the following post:
Well look, I stop reading immediately when somebody presents this as a counter-
argument: ‘A further illustration of the variability of atmospheric carbon diox-
ide can be gained from Ernst-Georg Beck’s accurate analysis covering 180 years.’
What a shame […].
Another participant intervenes — Arthur Rörsch, a retired prominent Dutch sci-

entist and a skeptic in the climate debate:
I feel that a bit more ‘peer review’ on this blog would be desirable as well […]. Hajo
could play devil’s advocate more often by not simply accepting every anti-AGW
proclamation at face value, but instead subjecting the rebuttals to these procla-
mations to criticism. I think that this would make a stronger impression. Treat
criticism that arises from within your own skeptical angle with criticism as well.
In the first part of this line of discussion, editor Zeilmaker performs, and even more
bluntly, the same act of exclusion that his co-editor Smit had performed one week
before. Zeilmaker refers to ‘the epistemic values of this blog’, which apparently in-
clude the norm that references from critical participants regarding the appropriate-
ness of a respectful tone in the debate are not welcome (questions 1.2 and 1.3). In
the second part, topics concerning the acceptability of arguments and authority of
sources crop up. Subsequently, a new perspective on the purpose of the discussions
on Climategate.nl appears: criticism among the skeptics themselves (question 2.1).
6. Conclusion
Sunstein’s balkanization thesis requires a nuanced approach. As suggested by the

literature review, although some mechanisms seem to facilitate balkanization and
group polarization, participants in political online forums might also have an in-
terest in the participation of dissidents. Furthermore, the empirical findings on the
homogeneity of messages are inconclusive. I drew two main conclusions. Firstly,
contextualization is essential to the understanding of why homogeneity can be
found in some political online forums and not (or less) in others. Secondly, a more
detailed grasping of the dynamics of the argumentation process is needed in order
to get a better understanding of polarization and homogenization. For this aim, I
adopted a process view of virtual communities and analyzed five discussion lines
on the online forum Climategate.nl that are distributed over a period of 17 months
in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
The objective of the empirical portion of the chapter is to analyze (1) which
processes of participant inclusion and exclusion take place and (2) how these pro-
cesses are manifested in communication between participants. To answer this
second question, I used the concept of an argumentative community. In an argu-
mentative community the purpose of discussions, the acceptability of arguments,
the authority of sources and norms for argumentative conduct are continuously
thematized and re-interpreted. The first conclusion that can be drawn is that even
a well-intentioned forum like Climategate.nl seems to move in the direction of
an echo chamber gradually over time. The analysis shows that Climategate.nl was
never (completely) balkanized. However, acts of exclusion and self-exclusion did
occur in the course of time. In the initial stages of the forum, the community
managers apparently tried to keep dissidents involved. In this case, one contextual
factor seems to have been crucial: the initiators’ aims, laid down in the mission
statement, which expresses the intention to provide a platform for respectful and
fruitful discussion. Fragments from a later stage, however, suggest that dissidents
were chased away and that the community managers had played an active role in
this. One of the editors explicitly argued that he had lost his faith in the fruitful-
ness of discussions with the alarmist camp. The second conclusion refers to the
elements constituting an argumentative community. The purpose of the discus-
sions has been re-interpreted over time. This is a core issue in the constitution of
an argumentative community. Other elements, including the authority of sources
and norms for argumentative conduct, were thematized as well. Self-exclusion and
exclusion of dissidents were accompanied with meta-discussions relating to falla-
cies, such as the ad hominem and ad baculum fallacies and fallacies of evading and
shifting the burden of proof. These fallacies exemplify the adversarial commu-
nicative culture of discussion forums on climate change. A third conclusion can
be drawn, which concerns the causal structure underlying Sunstein’s argument
(discussed in Section 2). The relationship between homogenization and group
polarization involves a dynamic that works in both directions: group polariza-
tion seems to encourage homogenization, and not only the other way around. It is
important to note, however, that Climategate.nl has retained a non-homogeneous
composition. A quick overview of the threads occurring after the period included
in this research reveals that new participants are continuously entering the forum.
This investigation of five discussion lines does not warrant definitive conclusions.
This study reveals some implications for the design of online forums on con-
troversial issues. One implication concerns the separation of the roles of moderator
(or community management) and editor. On Climategate.nl, the primary editors
combined these roles. The moderation of an online argumentative community,
148 Arthur Edwards
however, requires capabilities other than those required for the journalistic task of
editing. In the case of Climategate.nl, a ‘counter-steering’ community-management
style and moderation policy would be required in order to keep group polariza-
tion and homogenization within certain limits. In terms of concepts presented in
Figure 2, I conclude that the aims laid down in the initiators’ mission statement,
were not embedded strongly enough in the moderation policy to withstand pres-
sures from the communicative cultures involved in discussions between climate
skeptics and alarmists. A counter-steering moderation policy is needed to strike a
balance.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Marcin Lewiński for valuable comments on the first version of this
chapter during the International Colloquium ‘Argumentation in Political Deliberation’, which
was held on September 2, 2011 in Lisbon. Willem de Koster (Department of Sociology, EUR)
and two anonymous reviewers gave valuable comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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Debating multiple positions
in multi-party online deliberation
Sides, positions, and cases
Marcin Lewiński
Dialectical approaches traditionally conceptualize argumentation as a discussion

in which two parties debate on “two sides of an issue” (pro and con). However,
many political issues engender multiple positions. This is clear in multi-party
online deliberations in which often an array of competing positions is debated
in one and the same discussion. A proponent of a given position thus addresses
a number of possible opponents, who in turn may hold incompatible opinions.
The goal of this chapter is to shed extra light on such “polylogical” clash of
opinions in online deliberation, by examining the multi-layered participation
in actual online debates. The examples are drawn from the readers’ discussions
on Osama bin Laden’s killing in online versions of two British newspapers: The
Guardian and The Telegraph. As a result of the analysis, a distinction between
sides, positions, and cases in argumentative deliberation is proposed.
Keywords: argumentation, deliberation, online discussions, political argument,

polylogue
1. Introduction
Online deliberation has been an object of great interest for at least two decades
now (see Rheingold 1993; Hauben and Hauben 1997; Hill and Hughes 1998; Davis
1999, 2005; Wilhelm 2000; Sunstein 2007; Davies and Gangadharan 2009). The
study of online discussions has engendered various, often conflicting accounts of
the quality of online deliberative practices: do they in any significant sense “revo-
lutionize” political deliberation or rather simply import traditional forms of politi-
cal talk into a new medium (see Wright 2012)? In particular, do they support open
and critical deliberation over a variety of positions, or rather, do they facilitate
doi 10.1075/bct.76.07lew
152 Marcin Lewiński
echo chambers in which the internet users simply reinforce their previously held
beliefs (Edwards this volume)? One crucial area of such inquiry is the analysis of
online argumentative discourse (Lewiński 2010a, 2010b). That is because argu-
mentation has consistently been considered as one of the definitional qualities of
deliberation: from Aristotle’s take on public deliberation as one of three genres of
rhetoric, to Habermas’s reconstruction of the 18th century public sphere, to nor-
mative accounts of contemporary deliberative democrats.1 All these perspectives,
despite important differences, presuppose a more or less implicit theory of argu-
mentation that underlies deliberation and takes the form of dialectical weighing
of pros and cons, typically by two opposing parties. It is anything but surprising,
then, that dialectically-minded argumentation theorists too have taken serious ac-
count of deliberation: Walton (1998) conceptualizes it as one of the six basic ideal-
ized dialogue types, while van Eemeren (2010) understands deliberation as one of
the main genres of communicative activity in which argumentation plays a crucial
role.
Collective deliberation is, by definition, a multi-participant activity. Genuine
involvement of multiple active deliberators has traditionally been undercut by ob-
vious time and space limitations. However, with the rise of new information and
communication technologies, various forums for online deliberation have been
designed exactly to support argumentative practices among large groups of people
(Aakhus and Lewiński 2011). Hence the question arises: What precisely is the im-
pact of the plurality of participants on the practice of argumentation? Serious prac-
tical and theoretical issues lurk in this question: while argumentation is typically
envisaged as a dialectical encounter between two parties (pro and con), large-scale
deliberation amounts to an argumentative discussion among many participants,
possibly constituting a variety of parties holding distinct positions that cannot be
easily grasped as simple yes / no or pro / con dichotomies (see Dascal 2008).
1. For Aristotle, “Deliberative speaking urges us either to do or not to do something: one of
these two courses is always taken by private counsellors, as well as by men who address public
assemblies” (Rhetoric:1358b). Habermas repeatedly stresses that the primary function of the
public sphere is rational-critical public debate in which issues are decided on the sole basis of
“the authority of the better argument” (1989: 36). He traces the modern connection between
deliberation and argumentation to the 18th century rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment.
For instance, according to a German publicist Wieland, critical “public opinion” resulted from
“the most incisive investigation of an issue, after the most exact weighing of all the reasons
pro and con” (Habermas 1989: 102). Bohman defines deliberation as “a dialogical process of
exchanging reasons for the purpose of resolving problematic situations that cannot be settled
without interpersonal coordination and cooperation” (1996: 27). Cohen, in the simplest of for-
mulations, treats deliberation “as a kind of mutual reason-giving” (2009: 8) and proposes that
“ideal deliberative procedure” in democratic decision-making should be based on “the notion
of justification through public argument and reasoning among equal citizens” (Cohen 2009: 22).
Multi-party deliberation: Sides, positions, and cases 153
In what follows, I will tackle these issues by, first, illustrating the clash of
multiple positions in the readers’ discussions following commentaries on Osama
bin Laden’s killing published in online versions of two British newspapers: The
Guardian and The Telegraph (Section 2). Further, as a preliminary step to grasp-
ing the argumentative intricacies of multi-party debates, I will discuss the varied
senses of participation distinguished by the analysts of language in interaction, in-
cluding interaction online (Section 3). Finally, I will clarify the notion of parties to
argumentation by distinguishing between sides, positions, and cases in argumen-
tation analysis (Section 4). These distinctions will be seen as a theoretical addition
to extant theories of argumentation, an addition that constitutes an important step
towards satisfactorily analyzing multi-party online deliberation.
2. Bin Laden is dead and what now
On the 2nd of May 2011 Osama bin Laden was killed in an overnight raid by
American Special Forces on his secret residence in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
The operation was personally authorized and followed live in the White House by
the American President Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, the event became an ex-
tensively covered and debated media topic. The fact of eliminating the USA’s pub-
lic enemy number 1, coupled with the secret nature of the operation that left many
factual details rather obscure, gave rise to a great many accounts of bin Laden’s
death — from attempts at reconstructing the facts on the ground to debates on
the killing’s significance in global politics and the ‘war on terror’ in particular.
Media across the world invited commentators to present their varied perspectives
on the event. So did two popular British newspapers: The Guardian and The Daily
Telegraph.2 In their online editions, both editors and external experts commented
on bin Laden’s death. The choice of commentators and their respective points of
view to a large extent followed the lines of the well-known differences between
the left-leaning Guardian and the right-leaning Telegraph. This is typified in The
2. In the context of studying online discussions, the popularity of these two broadsheet news-
papers can be measured by the number of online readers and their participation in discussions
taking place on the newspaper’s website, rather than by traditional figures, such as circulation of
the printed edition. In terms of the online readership, in the month of February 2008 analyzed
by Richardson and Stanyer (2011: 988–989), The Guardian had the highest number of unique
users per month (19,519,923) among all British newspapers (including broadsheet and tabloid),
and the highest average number of comments per article (45.72). The Daily Telegraph was the
fifth most popular newspaper (and third broadsheet, after The Guardian and The Times) in terms
of online readership (12,283,835 unique monthly users), but the second most popular in terms
of readers’ comments (average 32.76 per article).
Guardian’s comments written by Andrew Murray, a member of the Communist

Party of Britain and the chair of Stop the War campaign, well-known for his firm
stance against the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, in general,
anti-imperialistic, anti-American, and anti-Israeli views, as well as pro-Stalinist
sympathies. The Telegraph, quite differently, lent its comments section to Anne
Applebaum, an American journalist once associated with the neoconservative
American Enterprise Institute, yet a supporter of Obama’s administration, and
in general of American foreign policy, including staunch anti-communism, pro-
Israeli Middle Eastern solutions, and military measures necessary to protect the
security of American citizens. However, the differences between Murray’s and
Applebaum’s views, and the responses they received from online readers, go far
beyond the simple dichotomies of anti- and pro- (war on terror, Israel).
Andrew Murray in his commentary “Bin Laden’s death is a fork in the road”
(Murray 2011) argues that “The killing of the al-Qaida leader either means the end
of the ‘war on terror’ or more Bin Ladens rising to continue the fight.” According
to him, the governments of the U.S. and the U.K. should take “the fork in the road”
occasioned by bin Laden’s death in the direction of a radical change of their poli-
cies in the Middle East. More understanding and discussion with the Arab and
Muslim world, supported by concrete measures such as a complete pull-out of
NATO troops from Afghanistan and Iraq as well as severing links with Western-
backed Arab regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia), should replace the direction of continu-
ing military interventions justified by the bogus ‘war on terror’, which can only
bring about reverse effects. As he concludes “The Anglo-American policy of end-
less war has gifted Bin Laden the sort of legacy he would doubtless have liked. A
change of course can now deny him that memorial. It should be done not just to
make us safer, but because it is right” (Murray 2011).
Murray’s commentary received 144 responses from 89 readers of The
Guardian’s “Comment is Free” online section over 3 days (2–4 May 2011).3 Partly
due to a simple chronological ordering of readers’ messages, most of them directly
addressed Murray’s points in a simple pattern (a single message that attracts no
further responses is written by a reader to comment on Murray’s opinions).4 Yet,
3. Murray’s commentary was published on 2 May 2011, 16.30 BST. The first user’s response
was posted 2 May, 16.43 BST, and the last one 4 May, 12.24 BST. Note that in Richardson and
Stanyer’s (2011: 989) larger study of discussions in British online newspapers from 2008, an
average number of comments per article in The Guardian equals 45.72; the discussion analyzed
here is thus more than 3 times longer than the average.
4. I take direct responses to be those that explicitly take up a proposition put forth by the com-
mentator — here: Murray or Applebaum — and express an opinion vis-à-vis this proposition.
This is typically accompanied by direct forms of address (“I don’t believe there is a […] chance
even if a minority, some messages were responses to other users’ comments, open-
ing varied lines of reader-to-reader discussions. Importantly, the point of depar-
ture for such multi-party discussions is still the expression of different positions
vis-à-vis Murray’s ideas. The comments that directly address Murray’s point can
target either the main position advocated by Murray, or his arguments (that may
constitute sub- or even tangential issues). In both cases, online discussants can
explicitly contradict, doubt, or support Murray’s views. Of crucial interest in the
analysis of argumentation are the dissenting voices; the first stage of a reconstruct-
ed argumentative discussion is always a confrontation in which the difference of
opinion between arguers is expressed (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 57ff;
see also Jackson and Jacobs 1980). Indeed, Murray’s views are criticized from a
variety of clearly distinct positions listed below. I categorize them below into five
different kinds of opposition to Murray’s main point that can be reconstructed
stressing certain key words:5
“Bin Laden’s DEATH is a FORK in the road” that WE SHOULD take in the
direction of CHANGE of our policies in the Middle-East.
Opposition 1 (conservative, right-wing, “hawkish”)
NO FORK until no terrorism. (Or even if indeed a fork, we SHOULD NOT change
anything)
JoeDeM 6
2 May 2011 4:34PM
When the terrorism stops is when the war on terror stops.
No appeasment of religious fascism.
Bluecten
2 May 2011 5:23PM
The killing of the al-Qaida leader either means the end of the ‘war on terror’
or more Bin Ladens rising to continue the fight
Andrew Murray
[…] of a change […], Andrew,” “Mr Murry your assumption in my opinion is wrong”) or quota-
tions from the original commentary.
5. It surely is possible to categorize these responses using a different set of criteria. This would
nevertheless not affect the point I am making here as long as a multiplicity of distinct dissenting
positions is expressed.
6. All fragments come from a complete pool of responses to Murray’s and Applebaum’s com-
mentaries that were made available on the online editions of The Guardian and The Telegraph.
All passages are quoted verbatim (including non-standard spelling and grammar), save for oc-
casional abridgements.
Wrong premises ineluctably lead to a wrong conclusion. The issue you raise isn’t
really conditioned on how liberal democracies react to acts of terror. Islamic fun-
damentalism is at the root of it all.
Opposition 2 (more skeptical leftist)

(Unfortunately) no fork, and change impossible (even if deeply needed). (NO
FORK, NO CHANGE)
amcpartland
2 May 2011 4:41PM
I don’t believe there is a snowball’s chance in hell of a change in Anglo American
policy towrds the Arab and Islamic world, Andrew. Nor do I think this represents
a fork in the road. bin Laden could not have had a serious role in al Q’aida for
years. […] He was simply a figure head. The truth appears to be that Britain and
America are incapable of accepting peaceful solutions. Now they have been joined
by the little man in the Elysee, from where in previous times, one expected a bit of
common sense. […] Sorry Andrew I imagine life will go on as before. I imagine
there is already a new leadrer of al Q’aida and the next atrocity is being planned.
We thought the disappearence of Bush and Blair would lead to new beginnings
and what did we get. More of the same plus now, Libya. […]
Opposition 3 (condescending — accusation of simplistic starting points)

NO FORK, no simple solutions.
Ernekid
2 May 2011 4:42PM
This world view is so simplistic it is almost reductionist. There are no simple issues
in western foreign policy. Linking completely different scenarios such as Libya
and Iraq shows a fatal misunderstanding of foreign affairs.
Good riddance to bin laden I thought he died years ago of kidney failure
Opposition 4 (anti-apologetic; compatible with 1, 2, or 3?)

Even if fork, then to be taken by Arabs, not the West. (so NO WE)
Stiffkey
2 May 2011 4:43PM
One way lies a fundamental rethink of US and British policy towards the
Arab and Muslim worlds, a chance to drain the swamp that bred 9/11. [a
quote from Murray — ML]
Take a look at the Arab Spring. It is not the west that need to change its attitude to-
wards anything, it needs the islamic and arabic despots to wake up to the ground
moving beneath their feet.
oat876
2 May 2011 4:59PM
[…] I’m getting tired of this ‘it’s all the West’s fault’ when big bad leaders remain
in power.Big bad leaders stay in power because their people allow them to stay
in power by a conspiracy of fear. […] And it is time the Arab World faced the
problems of illiteracy,minority rights and poverty square on,instead of blaming
Western and Zionist bogeymen.
Opposition 5 (conspiracy theory)

Bin Laden is not dead. (NO DEATH)
dobbins
2 May 2011 4:58PM
Does anyone believe this propaganda? In the week that Obama’s nationality
was questioned, he has just had America’s most wanted man ever assassinated.
Absolute toss!
NoSurrenderMonkey
2 May 2011 6:11PM
Either show the photographic evidence or else be taken for liars.
Moreover, there are some sub-oppositions related to sub-issues relevant to the

topic:
fishandart
2 May 2011 5:06PM
Major misjudgment and/or mismanagement by Obama not to have tried to arrest
him and bring him to justice via an international court. […]
10080506
2 May 2011 6:04PM
United States has conducted a brilliant operation, but the reaction of Obama and
public expressions of joy near the White House… I was disappointed. This sug-
gests that the terrorists have impose us their behaviour scenarios.
Finally, there are those who support, even if with some qualification, the major
points of Murray’s commentary:
yesyesnoyes
2 May 2011 6:07PM
I agree that this should largely end military efforts in the so called war on terror,
although there is still Bin Ladens sidekick Zawaheiri who must be killed or cap-
tured. […]
Besides these different kinds of differences of opinion with Murray’s position, The
Guardian’s online readers also express disagreements and engage into argumenta-
tive discussions with each other:
Finite187
3 May 2011 10:18AM
JoeDeM
When the terrorism stops is when the war on terror stops. [a quote from
JoeDeM’s message, see above — ML]
America hasn’t been attacked since Sep11, Al Qaeda hasn’t represented a genuine
threat to America’s interests or it’s civilians for quite some time. This is a war
without end which has fed trillions of dollars of taxpayers money to the defence
industry, and provided the US right with a bogeyman to scare the public with.
I mean what would actually convince you that the war is ‘over’?
OneManIsAnIsland
3 May 2011 10:33AM
The war on terror will not be won until the entire muslim world is eating hotdogs
and wearing bikinis.
Or:
Finite187
3 May 2011 10:20AM
To all those people claiming [here on The Guardian’s forum — ML] Osama isn’t
dead — Surely he could just record a video holding today’s paper, and the US
would end up looking stupid? Why would they take that risk?
The online discussion over Murray’s stance on the ‘war on terror’ after bin Laden’s
death is clearly a relevant case for argument analysis: discussants expressly object
to Murray’s opinions and engage in a reasoned defense of their opinions while at-
tempting to refute the opinions of others. To be sure, the question of whether such
a “discussion thread […] has the semblance of being an argument, but in fact it is
closer to a succession of obdurate opinions” (Richardson and Stanyer 2011: 1000)
is wide open, and invites not only a thorough argument analysis but also subse-
quent qualitative evaluation of the discourse. One thing seems quite undisputable,
though: discussants do express opposition from different angles, and thus engage
in discussing many positions in one and the same piece of conversation. An ar-
guer thus faces a number of distinct opponents, who in turn may also oppose
each other. As argued below, this poses a serious challenge to argument analysis
that typically approaches argumentation in terms of monological justifications (or
refutations) or dyadic encounters between a proponent and an opponent (note
the singular form). Before discussing such theoretical challenges, the analysis of
another online discussion is in order.
Anne Applebaum takes a clearly different angle than Murray in her com-
mentary “Bin Laden killed: For a day or two, we’ll feel like the United States of
America again” published in the online edition of The Telegraph (Applebaum
2011). Her main points of concern are the ramifications of bin Laden’s killing for
internal American politics. She strikes a laudatory note when describing her fellow
Americans rejoicing spontaneously in American streets on the news of bin Laden’s
execution:
It’s always satisfying when hoary old national stereotypes suddenly prove to be
true. On Friday, the British were brought together as a nation by a royal wedding.
On Sunday morning, Poland was brought together as a nation by the beatifica-
tion of the former Pope. On Sunday night — and well into Monday morning —
my fellow Americans were brought together as a nation by their delight in the
execution of Osama bin Laden. You sing God Save the Queen, they say a “hail
Mary”, we chant “USA, USA”. And all of us wave our national flags. […] Both
Liberal America and Conservative America will be equally pleased to hear the
announcement, after all: Osama bin Laden is one of the few things we all agree
about. Briefly, if only for a day or two, we will feel like the United States of America
once again. (Applebaum 2011: online)
Moreover, she praises President Obama’s policies exemplified by his personal in-
volvement in the successful operation to assassinate bin Laden.
Applebaum’s commentary received 160 responses from 86 readers of The
Telegraph’s online edition over 4 days.7 Applebaum’s main point can, similarly to
Murray’s, be reconstructed using some basic categories:
The KILLING of bin Laden is USA’s great ACHIEVEMENT that will (at least
briefly) REUNITE the divided political scene in the USA behind some common
VALUES.
Interestingly, the first response that opens the discussion under her commen-
tary expresses a blunt agreement:
JabbaTheCat
05/02/2011 08:24 PM
Job well done America.
However, soon afterward the opposition from many different angles emerges. One
can see at least six distinct lines of criticism of Applebaum’s point.
Opposition 1 (conspiracy theory)
Bin Laden is not dead (NO KILLING)
7. Applebaum’s commentary was published on 2 May 2011, 20.12 BST. The first user’s response
was posted 2 May, 20.24 BST, and the last one 5 May, 10.33 BST. Note that since, according
to Richardson and Stanyer (2011: 989), an average number of comments per article in The
Telegraph amounts to 32.76, this discussion thread is nearly five times longer than the average
(measured in February 2008 rather than May 2011, though).
Luke
05/02/2011 08:37 PM
No body. No photos. No evidence.
Opposition 2 (ethical indignation from human rights perspective)

One shouldn’t kill and cheer in this way (KILLING is NO ACHIEVEMENT)
Sandhams
05/03/2011 10:25 AM
The death of Bin Laden was nothing more than a common murder. I do not ever
recall a formal declaration of war and I do not remember there ever being a trial
of the individual concerned. Was he even given a chance to surrender? The hy-
pocrisy of the USA is breathtaking. They bleat on about spreading democracy,
freedom etc. and then engage in assassinations […]
amcgrath
05/02/2011 08:43 PM
[…] Cheering newly weds is a little different to cheering the killing of a human be-
ing. The americans dancing and whooping on the streets, didn’t look so different
from the arabs who were condemned for celebrating the fall of the twin towers.
Opposition 3 (anti-American, left-wing, anti-imperialistic)

NO ACHIEVEMENT OF THE USA
bogbeagle
05/03/2011 10:40 AM
[…] Nothing will become better as a result of this man’s death…because the real
enemy of Americans is the American State.
ellerveira
05/03/2011 03:46 AM
The death of OBL is not going to change things much, other than most likely make
things worse long run. […] OBL already won his war vs the US by sending it on
the road to bankruptcy and political hysteria. And that is something the US isn’t
smart enough to overcome.
Opposition 4 (from the far-right)

NO ACHIEVEMENT OF USA’s President
yankeedoodlemandy
05/03/2011 05:34 AM
What a bunch of left wing B.S. […] Ms. Applebaums President was the one who
ran in 2008 on the platform of cut and run in the terrorist war,wanted civilian
trials for terrorist and wanted to close Gitmo. Now he’s a terrorist warrior to this
left wing hack who thinks the Tea Party is a bigger threat to the liberal agenda of
unlimited government than the terrorist. […]
Opposition 5 (cynics looking to USA’s realpolitik)

NO VALUES, just a cold political calculation
Firozali A.Mulla
05/03/2011 01:57 PM
I live in Africa. When we heard that Osama is dead the first reaction was, “Here go
the politicians trying to seek the second term.” […]
Happybrian123
05/03/2011 09:27 AM
What these politicians will do for an increase of 1% in the popularity polls. A man
is dead, leave it as that.
Opposition 6 (skeptical)
Nothing will change, it is an irrelevant issue (NO REUNITE)
bridgebuilder
05/02/2011 10:14 PM
Bin Laden’s death is a late victory from yesteryear, for a bygone era. The world
has changed, moved on, and the value of this “victory” is pyrrhic, fleeting, and
psychological, as it brings closure and nothing more. The hydra that is terrorism is
alive and well and will be so as long as the conditions that gave birth to it remain.
[…]
For brevity’s sake, I will skip examples of criticism at the sub-level, as well as (of-
ten extended) examples of critical argumentative exchanges between the online
readers themselves. The crucial point is that, similarly to the discussion in The
Guardian, Applebaum’s commentary invited criticisms from distinct, at times in-
deed opposite, points of view. A noticeable difference lies in the detail of the design
of the two fora — while The Guardian supports a straightforward chronological
presentation of comments, The Telegraph offers simple threading of discussion,
whereby each message is visually attached to a message that it responds to. Such a
design better renders the dynamics of online messages that often, including in this
case, develop into prolonged and at times intricately related conversations.8 This
creates a rather complex web of overlapping and intersecting discussions.
These two examples show how arguers in the public sphere may face criticism
from opposing directions: some claim that killing bin Laden is no achievement
8. The distribution of responses in The Telegraph discussion analyzed here does not differ from
Richardson and Stanyer’s results. In their representative sample, out of sum total of 1009 mes-
sages on serious political issues (racial difference, immigration), 252 directly addressed the col-
umn, 262 “commented on a general issue,” 286 were “directed at other readers’ comments,” and
112 combined “several of the other characteristics” (Richardson and Stanyer 2011: 993–994).
because it was overlooked by a black liberal president who betrays real American
values, while others argue it is no achievement because it simply instantiates
America’s failed imperialistic policies. Murray and Applebaum alike clearly ad-
dress a “multiple” and “mixed” audience, that is, an audience with diverse opinions
and varied starting points (van Eemeren 2010: 108ff). Being experienced journal-
ists and commentators, they certainly know their argument is directed at diverse
groups of people. Moreover, online readers themselves discuss their opinions in a
complex web of intersecting conversations: a European leftist may simultaneously
argue against a conspiracy theorist, who believes bin Laden is not dead, a Tea Party
supporter, who is happy about the death and sees it as but another step in the nec-
essary and successful ‘war on terror’, and an Obama voter, who too is happy with
the death, but because the hawkish policies of the ‘war on terror’ may finally be
adjusted or even terminated. In effect, an online arguer may face a comprehensive
“collective criticism” from all such different directions (Lewiński 2010b).
3. Participants in online deliberation
The problem for argumentation analysis and evaluation is how to grasp this mul-
titude of participants expressing varied positions in one and the same discussion.
One way of approaching it is on the practical and descriptive level, where the
problem can be grasped in terms of a simple predicament a participant to such a
discussion faces: who am I arguing with? To address this question, empirical anal-
yses of participation in complex conversational exchanges have been undertaken
by those investigating actual interactions (Clark and Carlson 1982; Goffman 1981;
Goodwin and Goodwin 1990; Haviland 1986; Hymes 1972; Kerbrat-Orecchionni
2004; Levinson 1988; Maynard 1986). A constant theme in such analyses is dis-
satisfaction with the dominant dyadic framework that approaches speech acts,
and argumentative speech acts in particular, as analytically definable in terms of
exchanges between but two participants: Speaker and Hearer (see Searle 1969,
1992) or, in case of argumentation, protagonist and antagonist (van Eemeren and
Grootendorst 1984, 2004) or proponent and opponent (Walton and Krabbe 1995).
For instance, speaking of this dyadic scheme Hymes argues that “even if such a
scheme is intended to be a model, for descriptive work it cannot be” (1972: 58).
Levinson, similarly, notices that analyses of conversations in terms of dyadic ex-
changes, even if extended by the addition of a third-party audience (1988: 165–
168), are “signs of serious mistakes, or at least oversimplifications, arising from
the assumption of dyadic verbal interchanges as the basic (or sole) form of human
communication” (Levinson 1988: 163–164).
Facing such oversimplifications, analysts have broken the vague notions of a

Speaker and a Hearer into a number of precise categories. Most famously, Goffman
(1981) proposed an analytic scheme that splits the Speaker into three categories
of “production format”: animator (the one who utters the message), author (the
one who formulates the message), and principal (“the party to whose position the
words attest”) (1981: 226). Further, he elaborates the simple notion of a Hearer
into “participation framework” consisting of ratified participants (addressed and
unaddressed recipients) and non-ratified participants (“inadvertent” over-hearers
and “engineered” eavesdroppers) (1981: 132–133; see Levinson 1988 for further
extensions of Goffman’s scheme).
Marcoccia (2004) applied similar categories to analyze the participation
framework in online “polylogic” discussions on Usenet newsgroups. He distin-
guished between three basic “participation roles” online discussants can take: 1)
readers, who simply follow online discussions without contributing to them (in
the internet idiom: “lurkers”); 2) casual senders, who actively participate in online
discussions by sending messages to newsgroups; and 3) hosts, particularly prolific
and active senders, who are the aspiring leaders that “conduct the conversation
group” (Marcoccia 2004: 131ff.). Based on these three categories, he suggests that
the “reception format” consists of: 1) an addressed recipient (the addressed ca-
sual sender); 2) eavesdroppers (silent readers); and 3) hosts, who are either “non-
addressed ratified recipients” (when a message is addressed to someone else) or
“favored recipients” (when a message does not have any explicitly specified ad-
dressee) (Marcoccia 2004: 142). There is thus little exclusivity on open forums for
online deliberation. Other than directly addressed, recipients are also “ratified re-
cipients” even if they are not directly, explicitly “spoken to.” So there is a network
of expected recipients (if one really wanted to address just one particular person,
one would rather send a private e-mail, a function that many online forums have).
All such recipients can respond to a message, as if it were addressed to them, even
though strictly speaking it is not. In brief, there is a constant potential that an
arguer is discussing the issues with a multitude of opponents, who may disagree
for a variety of distinct reasons. This potential is realized, as seen in the examples
above, as soon as these distinct opponents indeed engage their varied opinions in
one complex online discussion.
To further elaborate on what the categories of participant roles in online dis-
cussions can possibly mean for the analysis of multi-party argumentative discus-
sions, one can draw upon some distinctions proposed by Kerbrat-Orecchioni
(2004) and colleagues (Bruxelles and Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2004). They distinguish
between three levels of roles in actual conversations : (1) “the level of speakers”,
where each participant simply adds to the number of (potential) speakers; (2) “the
level of interactional roles” which are largely predetermined by the design of a
given activity (e.g., a moderator and invited guests in a radio debate); and (3) “the
level of discursive roles”, where a different role is equivalent to a different posi-
tion in a discussion; thus two teams with opposing views take up just two discur-
sive roles: “for” and “against” (Bruxelles and Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2004: 110–111).
Kerbrat-Orecchioni et al. tend to take a strong conversation-analytic view that
what chiefly matters for the analysis of polylogues (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2004) is
the numbers of participants (speakers), and not argumentative parties (discursive
roles). This difference becomes prominent when we notice that a collectivity of
participants can make up one argumentative party to a conversation — take for
example parliamentary debates, where members of one political party typically
make up one collective protagonist or collective antagonist to a debate. Therefore,
435 members of the American House of Representatives can be reconstructed as
constituting but two opposing parties supporting two opposing positions in their
argumentative discussions.
It seems clear from this characterization that what is most pertinent to the
analysis and evaluation of the strictly argumentative (rather than conversational)
aspect of multi-party discussions is “the level of discursive roles.” After all, the
chief task of argumentation theory is to reconstruct and evaluate the arguments a
given party (whether individual or collective) offers in the clash of opinions with
another party. Nevertheless, the other two levels become prominent in argumen-
tative analysis that pursues distinctly empirical goals and thus requires precise
conversation-analytic methods that focus on the details of individual discourse.
The bottom-up approach that starts from the level of particular speakers is indis-
pensable in a detailed description of unique factors of argumentative exchanges,
such as individual repertoires and styles of argument, discursive dynamics within
actual argumentative coalitions (how many party members co-produce one con-
sistent case), and other idiosyncrasies and differences between speakers within
one argumentative party (“discursive role,” coalition).
Similarly, “the level of interactional roles” is crucial to a contextualized analy-
sis of argumentation. To this end, it is important to take notice of a distinction
made by Levinson in his discussion of multi-participant conversations between:
1) social and institutional roles in a speech event (e.g. judge, prosecutor, advo-
cate, jury, witness, and accused in a criminal trial), that are typically static and
pre-assigned for the entirety of the event; and 2) production and reception roles,
described by Goffman (1981) and Levinson (1988), in an utterance event that are
dynamically assigned by conversationalists in a “blow-by-blow” fashion (Levinson
1988: 167–168). A significant point, that seems to have been underestimated by
Goffman, Levinson, and others, is that a different set of fixed roles in a speech
event pre-configures, to a certain extent of course, the dynamic assignment of
production and reception roles. For instance, the intended target of much talking
in a criminal trial is predominantly a jury and a judge, even if they are not di-
rectly addressed hearers. Reversely, a Speaker of the Parliament (as in the U.K. and
many other countries) will almost always be the officially addressed participant,
but hardly ever the intended target (this role belongs to other MPs and voters).
Such considerations pave the way for the analysis of participation roles (and recep-
tion roles in particular) as a result of the participants’ “on-the-fly” management of
discourse under the institutionally, or otherwise (conventionally, technologically),
predefined conditions of a speech event.
All these considerations regarding the level of speakers and interactional
roles are important in argumentative analysis of multi-participant conversations.
I refer to them noticing, however, that they are not the ultimate concern for ar-
gumentation theory. What mainly matters in a normative reconstruction and sub-
sequent evaluation of argumentation are the theoretical grounds for evaluating
reasons given in an argumentative discourse (monological, di-logical, polylogical)
as sound or fallacious. This is crucial, since the very skeleton of argumentation
evaluation is typically built of monological or dialectical models of discourse. At
the same time, as shown above, many actual conversations are multi-party events.
My strategy is thus to assume, on the basis of the research discussed above, that
the levels of speakers and interactional roles affect the empirical analysis of multi-
participant discussions, and to argue for a stronger position that also the level of
argumentative (discursive) roles should be addressed. The complexities of poly-
logues are not only contingencies of description and analysis of argumentative
discourse that can justifiably and consistently be argued out in abstract models of
argument evaluation. Rather, they are challenges to these models. If my argument
holds for the latter, it holds so much the stronger for the former. Hence, I focus
on the level of the argumentative roles, or on the multi-party discussions, rather
than on the level of speakers, or multi-participant discussions. In this way, I hope
to give some theoretical feedback, rather than solely empirical input to the study
of multi-party political deliberations.
For these reasons, I now turn to dealing with the multi-party argumentative
discussion on the theoretical level. What is needed at this level is conceptual sen-
sitivity to aspects of actual conversations, such as disagreeing (as well as agreeing)
for different reasons, that would open room for an adequate analysis of multi-
party and multi-position argumentative discussions.
4. Sides, positions, cases, and parties in argumentation
The Western tradition of argumentation studies — started by Greek sophists and

Socrates, and first codified by Aristotle — has it that there are “two sides to any
issue.” That is, to reasonably decide on a disputable issue one has to weigh argu-
ments that can be raised for and against the issue. For Aristotle (Topics), this is the
gist of the dialectical method. Stemming from this tradition, modern dialectical
approaches model argumentation as a regimented, reasoned discussion between
two parties, each of them taking a different side of the issue: the protagonist and
the antagonist, the proponent and the opponent, the questioner and the answerer,
or even Pope and Olga, or Black and White (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984,
2004; Hamblin 1970; Walton and Krabbe 1995).
Some, however, raise suspicions of such a neat division of labor:
We often hear it said that there are two sides to any issue. This is obviously a
simplification. We need only a casual brush with practical affairs or passing ac-
quaintance with the complexities of philosophical inquiry to appreciate the fact
that there are usually many more than merely two sides to most interesting issues.
We say that there are two sides to any issue as a way of conveniently codifying the
impression that there are typically multiple standpoints with respect to the truth
of a proposition, the validity of an argument, or the advisability of an action or
policy. (Jacquette 2007: 115)
Not without a tinge of irony, Jacquette traces the predominance of “two sides of
an issue” dictum to its proverbial, even poetic, value of an intellectual shortcut,
comparable to “a stitch in time saves nine.” Such sayings do involve numbers, so
he claims, but take them randomly rather than seriously. This is not his main line
of criticism, though:
There is nevertheless another philosophically more interesting reason why we
abbreviate the fact that there are often many, at least two, sides to any issue, by
speaking as though there were only two. For it seems to be part of our conceptual
framework to reduce all questions bivalently to pro and con, and because we think
of disputes as converging finally on two persons challenging each other with their
different perspectives on a question of fact, or standing in opposition to one an-
other in a conflict of interest or values requiring a simple thumbs up or thumbs
down decision. What comes to mind in this context is a face-off between two
athletic competitors, boxers, wrestlers, or tennis opponents, or attorneys battling
one another in a court trial, as prosecution or plaintiff and defense. (Jacquette
2007: 116)
Having expressed such strong views, Jacquette retreats however to a rather safe area
of inquiring whether “two-sided dialectics for an individual thinker” (2007: 117) is
a worthwhile undertaking, as compared to monological proof-making and actual
two-person dialectics (see Blair 1998 for a similar line of inquiry).
Jacquette seems to point to an important limitation of argumentation theory
(see also Bonevac 2003), but does so in a rather confusing way. Dialectics seems
to be more precise than Jacquette’s attacks on it. As I argued elsewhere (Lewiński

2011), the contest of two sides of an issue follows directly from the way a dia-
lectical issue enters consideration: “Discussion starts with a problem that can be
expressed by a question of the form: Is it the case that…, or is it not?” (Krabbe
2006: 186). From such a question (known as a polar or yes/no question) by defini-
tion we obtain but two contradictory sides, the “yes” side or the “no” side, or, in
Jacquette’s words, “a simple thumbs up or thumbs down decision.” (Of course,
there is also an important possibility of giving the “I don’t know” answer.) And by
the rules of language it simply cannot be otherwise.
Yet Jacquette is probably chiefly concerned, somewhat indiscriminately, with a
different type of question. By mentioning “multiple standpoints with respect […]
to the advisability of an action or policy” (2007: 15) he clearly suggests that what
drives his reservations about the concept of two and only two sides to an issue is
something like a Wh-question: Who is the public enemy no. 1? What is the best
way to counter terrorism? Which consequences will bin Laden’s death have for
American policies? Such open questions, differently than the yes/no questions,
allow for a number of relevant answers, and thus for multiple standpoints to be
advanced vis-à-vis the issue raised by a question. The standpoints formed, again
by contrast to the strict yes/no divisions, can be (and often are) contrary rather
than contradictory: the wrongness of one standpoint does not entail the correct-
ness of other(s), but the correctness of one does entail the wrongness of other(s).
Jacquette, then, is unjustified in saying that we tend to “reduce all questions biva-
lently to pro and con” (2007: 116) — it applies only to yes/no questions. Still, can
we at all speak of “many sides” to argumentative discussions as Jacquette and some
rhetoricians (Mendelson 2002) do?
Perhaps two simple distinctions can help. In a dialectical debate, a side of an
issue can be understood as a response to a yes/no question. That is, we would al-
ways get two contradictory sides: p vs ~p (or p vs ø in the “I don’t know” case) that
can be defended by one of the two parties to a dialectical dispute: proponent and
opponent. Logically speaking, a side is thus a set consisting of one element {(p)},
a proposition that is discussed in relation to its own contradiction {(~p)} (or an
empty set {(ø)}). This is different from what I will call a position. A position on an
issue can be seen as a response to a Wh-question. Therefore, we can get a genuine
multiplicity of positions simultaneously defended and objected to in a multi-party
dispute. A position is thus a one-element set {(p)}, consisting of a proposition that
is discussed in relation to other propositions, that are contrary to it {(q), (r), (s)…
(z)}. So defined, position can further be distinguished from what can be called a
case9 which consists not only of a proposition that is expressed as a standpoint of a
9. I owe this term to Francisca Snoeck Henkemans.

given arguer, but rather a standpoint together with its supporting arguments. That
is to say, a case is a structured set {(p), (a1, a2, a3)}.
What is the benefit of introducing such distinctions? First, the notion of a posi-
tion (as opposed to side) accounts for a multitude of contrary positions (p vs. r vs. q
vs. s…) in actual argumentative discussions occasioned by an open Wh-question.
The notion of a case captures the phenomenon of agreeing on a standpoint for
different reasons and disagreeing with a standpoint for different reasons, which is
well-described in detailed analyses of ordinary argument. For example, children
and teenagers often reject “collaboration offers” from other participants in multi-
party discussions, exactly because they do not share arguments given for a shared
standpoint (side or position) (Goodwin and Goodwin 1990; Maynard 1986). Such
differences are, however, most visible in political deliberation. Consider the fol-
lowing issue that was the main point of Murray’s commentary and the ensuing
discussion in The Guardian, as well as one of the points discussed in Applebaum’s
text and among The Telegraph’s readers:
What shall the American government and their allies do after killing Osama bin
Laden?
A. Continue the war on terror as it was until the terrorism stops.
B. Continue the war on terror but adjust tactics (e.g. withdraw ground troops
from Afghanistan).
C. Turn to diplomacy to keep pursuing past American policies in the Middle
East.
D. Turn to diplomacy to implement Barack Obama’s and Democrats’ “softer”
foreign policies.
E. Turn to diplomacy to adjust past policies to new circumstances.
F. Start developing completely new policies adequate to new circumstances.
G. Radically change the course of the misplaced colonial policies that have di-
rectly led to all the Middle East’s problems.
All of these positions have been taken up by either the invited commentators
(Murray, Applebaum) or “casual” readers of the two newspapers, as is exemplified
in the passages cited above. Depending on the chief question at issue, these can be
grouped as belonging to two opposing sides:
Shall we continue the war on terror as a primary measure to address problems in
the Middle East or not?
(A and B are on one side, C-G on the other.)

Shall we primarily continue our American policies or re-think them?
(A-D are on one side, E-G on the other.)

Further, each of these positions can be defended for varied reasons, often con-
trary or even contradictory:
We should first of all implement Barack Obama’s and Democrats’ “softer” foreign
policies, because this is the best way to uphold American influence in the Middle
East. (And upholding American influence is our main goal.)
vs.
We should first of all implement Barack Obama’s and Democrats’ “softer” foreign
policies, because this is the first necessary step to drastically limit American in-
fluence in the Middle East. (And limiting American influence is our main goal.)
In this exemplary debate, depending on the questions asked, we obtain two sides,
seven positions, and possibly a large number of cases.
It is worth noting that using such distinctions seems to be uncontroversial
from an ordinary language perspective. “Side” has a clear bi-polar tendency: “we’re
on the same side,” “he’s on the other side.” “Position,” by contrast, does allow greater
plurality: we speak of “a different position” rather than “the other position” (unless
it is clear that there are, rather unusually, but two positions on an issue). A “case,”
in common and legal discourse alike, is routinely used to refer to a set of argu-
ments put forward for a given position: someone can make a strong (convincing)
and weak (unconvincing) case for the position that “We should first of all imple-
ment Barack Obama’s and Democrats’ “softer” foreign policies.”
Further, for the sake of clarity, a proponent of a distinct position can simply
be called a party, as opposed to a participant. As mentioned above, what is in the
focus of argumentation theory is a diversity of positions, not a number of partici-
pants. Therefore, a group of participants who form a “tag-team” holding the same
position (see Brashers and Meyers 1989; Canary, Brosmann, and Seibold 1987),
can only be considered one party to an argumentative discussion. In Bruxelles
and Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s terms, a party — whether an individual participant or
a “coalition” of participants — has a distinct “discursive role” (2004: 110–111). A
multi-party argumentative discussion is thus not simply a discussion held between
more than two people, but rather a discussion in which more than two positions,
as defined here, are debated.
To come back to our examples of online discussions: one may correctly notice,
especially in the Applebaum case, that the multiple positions taken up by readers
who oppose her standpoint are a result of the multiple nature of the standpoint it-
self. First of all, her standpoint — reconstructed above as “The killing of bin Laden
is USA’s great achievement that will (at least briefly) reunite the divided political
scene in the USA behind some common values” — can be split into more than one
single proposition: 1) “The killing of bin Laden is USA’s great achievement” and 2)
“The killing of bin Laden will (at least briefly) reunite the divided political scene in
the USA behind some common values.” Thus oppositions 2 (killing is no achieve-
ment), 3 (killing is no achievement of the USA), and 4 (killing is no achievement
of USA’s president) distinguished above address the first part of the standpoint,
while oppositions 5 (no values) and 6 (no reunite) are directed at the second part
of the standpoint. What still remains in this case, however, are multiple opposi-
tions to a single standpoint: proposition 1 receives three distinct oppositions, and
proposition 2 two of them. That is to say, it cannot easily be explained as a case of a
“multiple difference of opinion” (van Eemeren and Grootendost 2004: 60). Rather,
we can see it as directly stemming from an open nature of the questions raised
in Applebaum’s commentary (How to evaluate bin Laden’s killing? What are the
killing’s consequences?) that invite the clash of a number of competing positions.
Moreover, it seems clear that the various opponents target different parts of one
sentence, rather than different sentences.
Second, additional complications regarding multiple oppositions to one’s
standpoint result from the pragmatic nature of actual, contextualized discourse.
Crucial in this respect is the notion of a “disagreement space,” that is, “a struc-
tured set of opportunities for argumentation” (van Eemeren et al. 1993: 95; Jackson
1992). The disagreement space consists of all the arguer’s commitments that can be
reconstructed on the basis of what she said in a given context. These commitments
include such pragmatic phenomena of language use as implicatures, presupposi-
tions, and felicity conditions related to the performance of particular speech acts
(see Grice 1975; Searle 1969). Consider again Murray’s standpoint: “Bin Laden’s
death is a fork in the road that we should take in the direction of change of our
policies in the Middle-East.” This speech act, apart from being a standpoint in an
argumentative discussion, can be seen as a directive speech act (proposal or plea:
“we should do x”; see Searle 1975). Such speech acts are felicitously performed
only if, among other conditions, a preparatory condition that those who are to act
are in fact in a position to act is fulfilled. In this case, it implies that the Western
world is in a position to make change in the Middle East. This felicity condition
becomes a “virtual standpoint” (van Eemeren et al. 1993: 95ff.; Jackson 1992) that
is directly challenged by those who fall under opposition 4 to Murray’s position:
“It is not the west that need to change its attitude towards anything, it needs the
islamic and arabic despots to wake up to the ground moving beneath their feet.”
Similarly, Murray’s standpoint presupposes that bin Laden is in fact dead — and
this presupposition is of course objected to by the conspiracy theorists (opposition
5 above: bin Laden is not dead).
Such pragmatic phenomena are routine complications in the analysis of actual
contextualized discourse with all its “uncontrolled” complexities and nuances (see
van Eemeren et al. 1993). Their examination allows us to gain a realistic picture of
what real-life deliberations, such as our online discussions, actually are. Yet, they
also bring about possible theoretical complications that would disappear if a simple
constructed case were analyzed where such contextual extensions are controlled. For
instance, to a simple question — Who should become the Republican candidate for
presidency? (uttered in early 2012) — one can answer that it is Romney, Santorum,
Gingrich, or Paul who should become the Republican presidential candidate. The
standpoint would be a single proposition with no hidden pragmatic complexities,
yet we would get a genuine multi-position, and thus multi-party discussion in which
the supporters of each given candidate would clash. The discussions over Murray’s
and Applebaum’s comments analyzed above, despite the above-mentioned nuances,
eventually do face exactly the same problems of multi-party deliberation.
Finally, the question remains of the nature of the connection of distinctions
between sides, positions, and cases in the study of argumentation to the analysis
of actual interactions outlined in the previous section. According to some analysts
(Baym 1996; Lewis 2005) many contributions to online discussions are evidently
argumentative. On the basis of the examination of English and French political
discussion fora hosted by popular newspapers (The Guardian, Le Monde), Lewis
argues that “the commonest message structure or sub-structure that emerges is one
of [reaction] + position + supporting statement(s)” (2005: 1808). That is to say, a
message usually consists of an (optional) reaction to another party’s position, fol-
lowed by an expression of one’s own position, supported by argument(s). On the
level of the linguistic design of the message, this structure is usually presented via a
concessive construction (Yes, you are right that p [reaction], but all the same q [own
position], because a1, a2, a3 [supporting arguments]) (see Lewis 2005: 1811ff.).
Positions are thus inextricably intertwined with reactions to some other inter-
locutors — the directly addressed recipients of messages. But it is clear that the po-
sitions are designed not only in relation to what the directly addressed recipient has
said (for example, the invited commentator of an online newspaper), but also in re-
lation to other parties — other “casual” contributors, “hosts,” or even wider public
— in a rather complicated web of competing positions. For instance, Applebaum’s
main standpoint is objected to from a variety of different positions, some of them
obviously incompatible (such as anti-American leftists vs. conservative supporters
of the USA’s ‘war on terror’). The Telegraph’s discussion is thus a case of a multi-
party debate in the argumentative sense. In this debate, arguers produce their posi-
tions by not only taking into account Applebaum’s original commentary, but also
by referring to others’ views, even if it is Applebaum’s position that they explicitly
refer to. This is clear in the phenomenon of non-addressed, yet presumably tar-
geted recipients responding to an opposition overtly addressed to someone else.
In a conversation, positions are thus typically designed as reactions to some-
one else’s position. Clark and Carlson (1982) have proposed a theoretical, rather
than purely empirical, justification of this phenomenon. They argue that what they
call “canonical conversation” is guided by “the principle of responsibility” accord-

ing to which “the speaker is responsible for designing his utterance so that all the
parties to the conversation can keep track of what he is saying” (1982: 344). On the
recipients’ side that means that even messages not directly addressed to them are
part of “their” communicative situation. In a dyadic talk, I need to attend to what
I tell and what I am told, so that the common ground and commitments defined
in the felicity conditions of my speech acts interlock with those of my interlocu-
tor’s. In a multi-party exchange I need to do that, plus I need to keep track of what
others tell and are told, even without (directly) addressing me.10 I should not be
surprised by questions such as “And how about you?” even if none of the previ-
ous talk was uttered by or addressed to me. As Clark and Carlson argue, there is
some emergent, dynamically constructed common ground, a store of conversa-
tional commitments, which I should keep track of, even if I do not actively add
to it. In the case of a canonical argumentative conversation, each arguer should
in principle design her message for everybody, in the sense that her position may
be a response to, or a trigger for, anyone else’s position. That is to say, by arguing
with one party, I may also be doing something to other (possible) discussions with
other parties, for instance rebutting as of now unexpressed objections or contra-
dicting some other party’s (unexpressed) basic starting points. If this indeed were
the case in online discussions, then it would be impossible to disentangle separate
dyadic exchanges for analysis and evaluation.
5. Conclusion
Theorists and analysts of political deliberation characteristically assume that it is

thanks to certain forms of argumentation — notably, the dialectical weighing of
pros and cons — that deliberation has a privileged status among other forms of po-
litical communication as a pursuit of common good with reasonable means.11 This
“implicit theory of argumentation” underlying deliberation contains a certain im-
age of what argumentative communication, and perhaps communication at large,
looks like: its most basic unit is a dyadic exchange between only two interlocutors,
and all more complex forms are its derivatives. Such a scheme is employed in most
approaches to analyzing interaction, such as speech act theory, that have had a sig-
nificant impact on elaborating dialectical models of argumentation. Basically, the
10. This applies, of course, only to cases of ratified participants; over-hearers and eavesdroppers
are exactly not expected to keep track of what others are saying.
11. An early account of the relations between “the dialectical perspective on argumentation” and
Habermas’s theory of communication can be found in Wenzel 1979.
dialectical dyad of the Protagonist and the Antagonist (or Proponent and Opponent)
can be seen as a special instantiation of the speech act theory’s dyad of a Speaker and
Hearer, an instantiation that comes to play whenever language is used for argumen-
tative purposes. Indeed, in its most sophisticated form a dialectical theory can be
fully elaborated in terms of the speech act theory (van Eemeren and Grootendorst
1984, 2004). The pragma-dialectical Protagonist and Antagonist bear, vis-à-vis each
other, pragmatic commitments that are defined by the felicity conditions of their
argumentatively relevant complex speech acts (“advancing a standpoint,” “argumen-
tation”). Intricately connected to the performance of such speech acts is the perlo-
cutionary objective of convincing the Antagonist (van Eemeren and Grootendorst
1984), who is sometimes also referred to as the addressee or the audience.
What has been considered in this chapter is the possibility of a Protagonist
(such as a newspaper commentator, for instance Murray or Applebaum) facing
simultaneously various Antagonists (online readers of the newspaper) who are ex-
pressing different positions in one discussion. The point of departure for the study
of multi-party discussions is thus the clash of distinct positions, that is, the clash
of different opinions on an issue instigated by an open Wh-question: What shall
the American government and their allies do after killing Osama bin Laden? What
are the most important consequences of bin Laden’s death? Discussions over these
issues in the online editions of The Guardian and The Telegraph are clear illustra-
tions of multi-party deliberations in which many distinct positions are simultane-
ously engaged in a battle of arguments.
Ubiquity of multi-party disputes in public, large-scale deliberation poses a
serious challenge to the extant methods of analyzing and evaluating political ar-
gument. While the implicit conception of argumentation underlying the theory
of deliberative democracy is basically “di-logical” in that it simplifies the rational-
critical debate to a clear-cut clash between two sides (pro and con), actual delib-
erators are in a much more complicated position. They do not only debate “on
the two sides of an issue,” but also have to take into account the presence of other
positions and even cases that they critically compete with. The question of what
rational argumentation in such a situation amounts to becomes quite complex. It
requires, on the one hand, more empirical studies based on complex analysis of ac-
tual multi-party deliberations and, on the other hand, serious theoretical attention
to the capabilities of the extant models and methods of argumentation analysis to
adequately treat such data.
Acknowledgements
I thank Marianne Doury for her valuable comments on an earlier version of this chapter. I ac-
knowledge the support of Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through
grant Argumentation in the virtual public sphere: Between ideal models and actual practices
(SFRH/BPD/74541/2010).
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Subject index
A 5, 6, 75, 76, 77–79, 80–86, democracy

argumentation passim 87, 91, 95, 97, 98, 99 participative democracy
argumentative activity type(s) context 1–8, 9, 17, 20, 21, 25–26, 76
see: communicative activity 23–24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, deliberative democracy 3–5,
type(s) 33, 34, 47, 49–50, 52, 62, 69, 8, 18, 76, 97, 127, 173
argumentative community 7, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83–84, design of argumentation /
127, 128, 132–135, 142, 145, 86, 90, 97, 99, 101, 102–13, communication 7, 11, 12,
147 116, 121–122, 123, 126, 15, 21, 30, 98, 101–126, 132,
argumentum 128–129, 132–135, 136, 137, 135, 137, 147, 150, 152, 161,
ad hominem 134, 139, 144, 140, 142, 146–147, 148, 164, 163–164, 171, 172, 175
147 166, 170–171, 176 dialogue type(s) 20, 84–85,
ad baculum 139, 147 macro context 17, 20, 23–24, 105, 109, 152
audience 8, 12–15, 16, 18–19, 85, 135 disagreement 9, 23, 27, 31, 39,
22–24, 26, 38, 39, 66, 71, 81, counter argument(s) 3, 81, 85, 42, 50, 69, 71, 77, 82, 83, 91,
83–85, 97, 134, 162, 173 88, 92, 111, 140,146 95, 157, 174
primary audience 19, 22–24, counter discourse 6–7, 75, 77, disagreement management
38 78, 81–82, 85–87, 88–98 7, 16, 77, 101, 103, 104–126
third-party audience 18–19, counter-steering moderation disagreement space 7, 16,
22, 28, 83–85, 162 7, 127, 137, 148 101–126, 170
mixed/heterogeneous critical discussion (the model
audience 81, 162 of) 6, 11, 12, 16, 20–22, 24, E
26, 73, 100, 114, 119, 120, echo chamber 7, 127, 128, 132,
B 134, 138 143, 144, 147, 148, 152
balkanization 127, 128–130, European Commission
136, 146–147 D 34–35, 42, 43, 44, 48, 51–54,
burden of proof 91, 140, 142, debate 3, 4, 6, 17–20, 21, 23, 59, 62–71, 92
147 24, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33–42, 45, European Parliament 5, 6, 17,
46, 47–51, 52, 56, 58, 63, 20, 24, 27, 29, 30, 33–45, 46,
C 64–72, 73, 82, 83, 84, 86, 92, 47–72, 73
climate change 7, 127, 128, 95, 99, 108, 120, 131–134,
134–135, 136, 138, 143, 145, 136, 139, 143, 145, 146, 148, F
147, 148, 149 151, 152, 153, 164, 167, 169, fallacies 3, 11, 20, 109, 138, 139,
communicative activity 171, 173, 174 142, 144, 147, 148, 165, 175
type(s) 6, 11, 16–24, 28, 30, presidential debate 20–21,
31, 33, 34, 37–39, 45, 46, 47, 83 G
49, 72, 73, 75, 83–85, 98, 99, decision making 38, 59, 63, governance 76, 80, 99
109, 126, 133–135, 137, 149, 75, 76, 79, 84, 95, 98, 102, argument governance 101,
152, 176 113, 119, 132, 135, 152 102, 105, 111, 122
consensus 78, 129 Deliberation passim
consensus conference deliberative genre (classic H
(conférence de citoyens) rhetoric) 1–2, 75, 84 homogenization 127, 128, 129,
131, 132, 137, 146, 147, 148
178 Subject index
I O public sphere 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 99,

institutional constraints / opposition 23, 24, 27, 30, 127, 132, 135, 136, 148, 149,
preconditions 6, 11, 19, 36, 44, 48, 81, 86, 87, 89, 152, 161, 174, 175
20–24, 31, 45, 75, 86 94–97, 132–133, 155–161, 166,
institutional rules / 170–171 Q
conventions 6, 17, 19, 28, question-answer pattern 80
34, 39, 49, 135 P
institutional mission / goal(s) polarization 7, 127, 129, 130, R
/ point 6, 11, 17–19, 21–22, 131, 136, 137, 146, 147 risk 27, 45, 55, 63, 70, 76, 81,
39, 47, 49–50, 56, 71, 84 political sciences 7, 75, 77, 83, 90, 98, 115, 133, 158
Internet 5, 28, 31, 80, 97, 99, 97–98
125, 126, 127–130, 135, 144, polylogue 119, 151, 163–165, S
148, 149, 152, 163, 175 174, 175, 176 simultaneous discussions 6,
Internet forums 28, 31, 83, pragma-dialectics 2, 6, 8, 47, 70, 71–72
84, 126, 133, 149, 176 11–32, 33, 39, 46, 73, 83, 99, strategic maneuvering 6, 8,
105, 109, 124, 125, 126, 133, 11–32, 33–34, 37–46, 47, 50,
N 173, 174, 175 69, 71–72, 73, 74, 98, 99, 125,
nanotechnology 7, 75, 76, public hearing (débat public) 126, 149, 175, 176
78–79, 82, 85–86, 88–89, 5, 6, 75–100
92–93, 97, 99, 100 public participation 75, 76,
77, 78, 80, 84, 98, 99

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Argumentation in Political Deliberation

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Subject index 177

Argumentation in political deliberation

Marcin Lewiński and Dima Mohammed

1. Argumentation theory and political deliberation

varied contexts for argumentation, including political deliberation. Therefore, it is

element of civic engagement. However, despite crucial insights, no system-

contexts for political deliberation. Not surprisingly, it is in the contextual study of

2. Overview of the volume

Frans van Eemeren, in “Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse in

the development of nanotechnology in France is discussed, focuses on the pro-

such deliberations are challenging to argument analysis that typically approaches

Frans H. van Eemeren

In this essay, first the pragma-dialectical theory of strategic maneuvering is

Keywords: argumentative characterization, communicative activity type,

1. Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse

Starting from the model of a critical discussion, pragma-dialectical theorizing

developed up to then allowed for.1 In Strategic maneuvering in argumentative dis-

3. See Wagemans (2009).

took a profound interest in both perspectives on argumentative discourse, con-

6. The rapprochement between dialectical and rhetorical approaches to argumentation is

Strategic maneuvering manifests itself in every argumentative move through

Audience demand Presentational devices

Figure 1. The strategic maneuvering triangle

Strategic maneuvering takes place at all stages of the argumentative process of

Dialectical Rhetorical Aspect of Aspect of audi- Aspect of presen-

Reasonableness Effectiveness Reasonable and Reasonable and Reasonable and

Opening stage Reasonable Effective Reasonable and Reasonable Reasonable and

Figure 2. Aspects of strategic maneuvering with two dimensions in 4 discussion stages

2. Conventionalization of communicative practices in communicative

Domains of communica- genres of communi-

events only as instantiations of a particular communicative activity type. All indi-

3. Institutional constraints on strategic maneuvering

17. The pragma-dialectical conceptualization of the macro-contextual dimension of argumen-

communicative activity types can be distinguished empirically through observa-

the discourse that need to be taken into account in an argumentative character-

Figure 4. Argumentative characterizations of 3 clusters of communicative activity types

the conventionalization of an argumentative activity type is articulated, the easier

4. Pragma-dialectical research of argumentative discourse in the political

23. See Dahl (1956a, b) and Sartori (1962).

for strategic maneuvering in the Plenary Debate in the European Parliament

practice aimed at maintaining a democratic political culture by holding politicians

Tindale, Christopher W. 2004. Rhetorical argumentation. Principles of theory and practice.

This chapter focuses on argumentation the institutional context of debate in the

Keywords: political argumentation, pragma-dialectics, strategic maneuvering,

Up until now, compared to parliaments in the member states, the European

* This article is partly based on van Eemeren and Garssen 2010.

parliamentary debate is preconditioned by several special characteristics of the

2. Plenary debate in the European Parliament

Together with the Council of the European Union, consisting of government

3. Preliminary observations concerning strategic maneuvering in

As could be expected, debate in the European Parliament has a lot in common

Communicative activity type of a plenary debate in European Parliament

genre of com- procedural and

Figure 1. Argumentative characterization of the communicative activity type of a plenary

Strategic maneuvering in plenary debates in European Parliament is not

Manolakou refers in her argumentation to the negative consequences of the

also mentioning the small family holdings on the outskirts of Strasbourg,

Herranz Garcia uses the same kind of pragmatic argumentation as Kalinowski

the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence

Figure 1. The strategic maneuvering triangle

Figure 2. Aspects of strategic maneuvering with two dimensions in 4 discussion stages

Figure 4. Argumentative characterizations of 3 clusters of communicative activity types

Figure 1. Argumentative characterization of the communicative activity type of a plenary