Abstract

This chapter analyzes the parliamentary debate on university tuition fees that took place in December 2009. Starting from a view of deliberation as abstract genre, it proposes a framework for the analysis and the evaluation of argumentation in deliberative activity types. The framework consists of a deliberation scheme and an attached set of critical questions, designed to increase the rationality of decision-making in conditions of uncertainty and risk. Integrating a dialectical and rhetorical perspective, the chapter also indicates how analysis of ‘framing’ can be articulated with analysis and evaluation of argumentation, e.g. how particular definitions, metaphors and analogies, intended to sway a potential decision in a preferred way, contribute premises to a deliberative process. The analysis also indicates how this approach can contribute to the study of argumentation in institutional contexts: institutions provide agents with reasons for action that are in principle non-overridable and act as extrinsic constraints on what agents can reasonably do. Finally, the relationship between normative and explanatory critique in CDA is also briefly addressed.