Green Arguments: Scientific Evidence and Political Persuasion

Project rationale and aims

In the study of politics there is growing interest in, and concern for, the ways in which expert evidence and argument is used, misused and misinterpreted in public political debate. At the same time, there is a renewed, growing interest in the study of rhetoric, not only as a means of communicating political ideas, but also as a way of constituting shared realities.

This project brings these two considerations together and studies the rhetorical construction of 'green' common sense. One way that the project does this is by looking at what happens to scientific argument when it enters the battlefield of political communication, where it becomes more explicitly entwined with ethical and ideological commitments and discourses. Whereas the use of scientific arguments in policy making aims at enhancing the objectivity and plausibility of introduced policies, when it comes to highly controversial and complex issues such as the environmental crisis the process of generating political consensus entails the use of diverse techniques of persuasion. Appeals to the authority of science and reason alone are insufficient. The purpose of the project, then, is to explore continuity and transformation in environmental policy disputes while tracing how the idea of a ‘green’ way of life has been argued for in the last 20 years.

Aims and objectives

Aims

The core of the project is the identification of the specific forms taken by green rhetoric and its opponents – the argumentative appeals, forms of reasoning, metaphors, and frames which give this dispute shape. The project contributes to the study of the situated and contextual nature of political argumentation; it also seeks to enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between political ideology and the production of scientific knowledge in ways that can be applied to other areas of public dispute.

Objectives

• To develop a comprehensive understanding ‘green’ rhetoric, as well as of anti-green rhetoric;
• to demonstrate how scientific discourse has been strategically used to enhance or disrupt political consensus;
• to analyse the rhetorical effects of scientific evidence in policy-making and political ideology;
• to refine the methodology of rhetorical political analysis and establish it as a methodological tool for analysis of large volumes of discourse.
   

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