Exploiting the Room for Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse Dealing with Audience Demand in the European Parliament

Abstract

Against the background of the standard pragma-dialectical theory, some fifteen years ago Van Eemeren en Houtlosser set about to extend the available analytic and evaluative tools by introducing the notion of ‘strategic maneuvering’ (van Eemeren and Houtlosser in Dialectic and rhetoric: the warp and woof of argumentation analysis. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, pp. 131–159, 2002). Strategic maneuvering refers to the arguers’ continual efforts to reconcile in their argumentative moves aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable. Strategic maneuvering takes place in all stages of the argumentative process of resolving a difference of opinion on the merits.