Abstract
In a critical discussion, interlocutors can strategically maneuver by shading their expressed degree of standpoint commitment for rhetorical effect. When is such strategic shading reasonable, and when does it cross the line and risk fallacious derailment of the discussion? Analysis of President George W. Bush’s 2002–2003 prewar commentary on Iraq provides an occasion to explore this question and revisit Douglas Ehninger’s distinction between argumentation as “coercive correction” and argumentation as a “person-risking enterprise.” Points of overlap between Ehninger’s account and pragma-dialectical argumentation theory suggest avenues for harmonization of rhetorical and dialectical perspectives on argumentation. Out of this conceptual convergence comes theoretical resources for understanding strategic maneuvering, by accounting for ways that discussants exploit gaps between their externalized and actual “discussion attitude.” As such higher-order strategic maneuvering played a major role in the 2003 Iraq prewar “discourse failure,” perspicacious understanding of this particular argumentative maneuver carries practical, as well as theoretical import.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arquilla, J., and D. Ronfeldt. 1999. Noöpolitik: Toward an American information strategy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Barth, E., and E.C.W. Krabbe. 1982. From axiom to dialogue: A philosophical study of logics and argumentation. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Blair, J.A. 2003. The relationships among logic, dialectic and rhetoric. In Proceedings of the fifth conference of the international society for the study of argumentation, ed. F.H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard, and F.S. Henkemans, 125–131. Amsterdam: SicSat.
Bush, G.W. 2002a. Bush letter: America intends to lead. CNN, 4 September. http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/04/bush.letter/.
Bush, G.W. 2002b. Remarks at a luncheon for representative Anne M. Northup in Louisville. September 6, 2002. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38: 1498.
Bush, G.W. 2003. President George W. Bush discusses Iraq in national press conference, 6 March. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html.
Crosswhite, J. 1996. Rhetoric of reason: Writing and the attractions of argument. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Ehninger, D. 1959. Decision by debate: A re-examination. Quarterly Journal of Speech 45: 282–287.
Ehninger, D. 1970. Argument as method: Its nature, its limitations and its uses. Speech Monographs 37: 101–110.
Ehninger, D., and W. Brockriede. 1966. Decision by debate. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co.
English, E., S. Llano, G.R. Mitchell, C.E. Morrison, J. Rief, and C. Woods. 2007. Debate as a weapon of mass destruction. Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies 4: 222–226.
Farrell, T.B. 1993. Norms of rhetorical culture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Foss, S., and C.L. Griffin. 1995. Beyond persuasion: A proposal for an invitational rhetoric. Communication Monographs 62: 2–18.
Gilbert, M.A. 1997. Coalescent argumentation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Goodnight, G.T. 1993. A “new rhetoric” for a “new dialectic”: Prolegomena to a responsible public argument. Argumentation 7: 329–342.
Graff, G. 2003. Clueless in academe: How schooling obscures the life of the mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Houtlosser, P., and F.H. van Eemeren. 1998a. Rhetorical rationales for dialectical moves: Justifying pragma-dialectical reconstructions. In Argument in a time of change: Definitions, frameworks, and critiques, ed. J.F. Klumpp, 51–56. Annandale, VA: National Communication Association.
Houtlosser, P., and F.H. van Eemeren. 1998b. Rhetorical ways of managing disagreement: Justifying reconstructions of confrontation. In Argument in a time of change: Definitions, frameworks, and critiques, ed. J.F. Klumpp, 57–62. Annandale VA: National Communication Association.
Johnstone, H.W. 1965. Some reflections on argumentation. In Philosophy, rhetoric and argumentation, ed. M. Natanson and H.W. Johnstone, 1–9. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Kaufmann, C. 2004. Threat inflation and the failure of the marketplace of ideas: The selling of the Iraq war. International Security 29: 5–48.
Keller, W.W., and G.R. Mitchell. 2006. Preventive force: Untangling the discourse. In Hitting first: Preventive force in US security strategy, ed. W.W. Keller and G.R. Mitchell, 239–263. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Klumpp, J.F. 2006. Facts, truth and Iraq: A call to stewardship of democratic argument. In Engaging argument, ed. P. Riley, 1–17. Washington, DC: National Communication Association.
Leff, M. 2000. Rhetoric and dialectic in the twenty-first century. Argumentation 14: 251–254.
Makau, J.M., and D.L. Marty. 2001. Cooperative argumentation: A model for deliberative community. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
McGee, M. 2001. Meet your footnote: Douglas Ehninger. American Communication Journal 5. http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol5/iss1/ehninger.htm.
Meiland, J. 1989. Argument as inquiry and argument as persuasion. Argumentation 3: 185–196.
Mitchell, G.R. 2006. Team B intelligence coups. Quarterly Journal of Speech 92: 144–173.
Mitchell, G.R. 2008. Rhetoric in international relations: More than “cheap talk. In The Sage handbook of rhetoric, ed. J.A. Aune and A. Lunsford, 247–263. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morganthau, H. 1948. Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Natanson, M. 1965. The claims of immediacy. In Philosophy, rhetoric and argumentation, ed. M. Natanson and H.W. Johnstone, 10–19. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Neumann, P.R., and M.L.R. Smith. 2005. Missing the plot? Intelligence and discourse failure. Orbis 49: 95–107.
Olson, K.M. 2006. The epideictic lens: The unrealized potential of existing argumentation theory to explain the Bush administration’s presentation of war with Iraq. In Engaging argument, ed. P. Riley, 18–28. Washington, DC: National Communication Association.
Payne, R. 2006. Deliberate before striking first? In Hitting first: Preventive force in US security strategy, ed. W.W. Keller and G.R. Mitchell, 115–136. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Perelman, C., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation (trans: Wilkinson, J., and P. Weaver). South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Prados, J. 2005. Iraq: When was the die cast? Tom paine commentary, 3 May. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/iraq_when_was_the_die_cast.php.
Regan, T. 2003. Report: Bush, blair decided to go to war months before UN meetings. Christian Science Monitor, February 3.
Risse, T. 2000. Let’s argue! Communicative action in world politics. International Organization 54: 1–39.
Sands, P. 2005. Lawless world: America and the making and breaking of global rules from FDR’s atlantic charter to George W. Bush’s illegal war. New York: Viking.
Sunday Times (Britain). 2005. The secret downing street memos, 1 May. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece.
Tannen, D. 1998. The argument culture: Moving from debate to dialogue. New York: Random House.
Toulmin, S.E. 1988. The uses of argument, 9th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
United States Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. 2005. Report to the President. http://www.wmd.gov/report/.
United States Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General. 2007. Review of the pre-Iraqi war activities of the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. http://www.dodig.mil/fo/Foia/pre-iraqi.htm.
United States Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence. 2004. Report on the US intelligence community’s prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq. www.intelligence.senate.gov/iraqreport.pdf.
van Eemeren, F.H., and R. Grootendorst. 1984. Speech acts in argumentative discussions: A theoretical model for the analysis of discussions directed towards solving conflicts of opinion. Berlin/Dordrecht: De Gruyter/Foris.
van Eemeren, F.H., and R. Grootendorst. 2004. A systematic theory of argumentation: The pragma-dialectical approach. London: Cambridge University Press.
van Eemeren, F.H., R. Grootendorst, A.F. Snoeck Henkemans, J.A. Blair, R.H. Johnson, E.C.W. Krabbe, Chr Plantin, D.N. Walton, C.A. Willard, J. Woods, and D. Zarefsky. 1996. Fundamentals of argumentation theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2002a. Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In Advances in pragma-dialectics, ed. F.H. van Eemeren, 13–28. Amsterdam: SicSat.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2002b. Strategic maneuvering: Maintaining a delicate balance. In Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis, ed. F.H. van Eemeren and P. Houtlosser, 131–160. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2003. Fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering: The argumentum ad verecundiam, a case in point. In Proceedings of the fifth conference of the international society for the study of argumentation, ed. F.H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard, and F.S. Henkemans, 289–292. Amsterdam: SicSat.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2006a. Preface. Argumentation 20: 377–380.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2006b. Strategic maneuvering: A synthetic recapitulation. Argumentation 20: 381–392.
van Rees, M.A. 2006. Strategic maneuvering with dissociation. Argumentation 20: 473–487.
Waltz, K. 1979. Theory of international politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Willard, C. 1979. Some questions about Toulmin’s view of argument fields. In Proceedings of the summer conference on argumentation, ed. J. Rhodes, and S. Newell, 348–400. Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Woodward, B. 2004. Woodward shares war secrets, 60 minutes transcript, 18 April. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/15/60minutes.
Zarefsky, D. 2006. Strategic maneuvering through persuasive definitions: Implications for dialectic and rhetoric. Argumentation 20: 399–416.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mitchell, G.R. Higher-Order Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentation. Argumentation 24, 319–335 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-009-9178-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-009-9178-3