Pursuing multiple goals in European Parliamentary Debates

Author(s):  
Dima Mohammed
2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dima Mohammed

In this paper 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 different 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 institutionalized 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 powers 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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra C. Schmid

Abstract. Power facilitates goal pursuit, but how does power affect the way people respond to conflict between their multiple goals? Our results showed that higher trait power was associated with reduced experience of conflict in scenarios describing multiple goals (Study 1) and between personal goals (Study 2). Moreover, manipulated low power increased individuals’ experience of goal conflict relative to high power and a control condition (Studies 3 and 4), with the consequence that they planned to invest less into the pursuit of their goals in the future. With its focus on multiple goals and individuals’ experiences during goal pursuit rather than objective performance, the present research uses new angles to examine power effects on goal pursuit.


2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damen Ward

In early colonial politics, decisions about lower court jurisdiction often reflected competing ideas about the relationship between different parts and functions of government. In particular, court structure and jurisdiction could be seen as having important implications for the role and power of the governor. Appreciating the importance of jurisdiction as a way of defining, and arguing about, the distribution and exercise of political and legal authority in the colonial constitution allows connections to be drawn between different elements of settler politics in the 1840s and 1850s. The closing of the Court of Requests by Governor Grey in 1848, and the decisions of the Supreme Court judges in subsequent litigation, provide examples of this. Debate over the role of the governor in emerging systems of representative and responsible government after 1852 contributed to lower court jurisdiction remaining politically significant, particularly in relation to Māori.  This is shown by considering parliamentary debates about the Stafford ministry's 1858 proposals for resident magistrates' jurisdiction over "native districts". The politics of jurisdiction were part of wider contests about the establishment and consolidation of particular political and institutional relationships within the colonial constitution. This multi-faceted construction of government authority suggests a need to reconsider elements of Pākehā colonial politics and law.


2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Lode Wils

In dit eerste deel van zijn uiteenzetting poneert Lode Wils de door zijn bronnen onderbouwde stelling dat het ontstaan van de Belgische (natie)staat de feitelijke slotfase was van een passage van de protonatie(s) in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden doorheen de grote politiek-maatschappelijke en culturele mutaties na de Franse Revolutie. Een passage die tijdens de late twintiger jaren van de negentiende eeuw bovendien sterk gekruid werd door het Belgisch 'wij'-denken dat meer en meer het cement ging vormen in de parlementaire en buitenparlementaire contestatie tegen het Hollandse regime.Wils verbindt in zijn uiteenzetting zijn eigen onderzoek omtrent de "cruciale parlementaire debatten in de jaren 1827-1830" aan zijn lectuur van de wetenschappelijke literatuur die zowel in het Noorden als in het Zuiden werd gewijd aan die problematiek, in bijzonderheid de doctoraalstudie L’invention de la Belgique. Genèse d’un Etat-Nation. 1648-1830 van de UCL-historiograaf Sébastien Dubois. Betekenisvol is overigens de frase van Wils waarin hij stelt dat Dubois zich "na het doorworstelen van bijna 2000 archiefbundels, ergert aan de voorstelling alsof niet het koninkrijk, maar 'België' geschapen werd in 1830."________1830: from the Belgian pre-nation to the nation state [part I]In this first part of his discourse Lode Wils puts forward the thesis corroborated by his sources that the creation of the Belgian (nation)state was in fact the final phase of a transition from the pre-nation(s) of the Southern Netherlands through the major socio-political and cultural mutations after the French Revolution. During the late nineteen twenties this transition was particularly marked by the Belgian “we-thinking” that gradually came to be the binding factor in the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary protest against the Dutch regime.  In his argument Wils connects his own research into the “crucial parliamentary debates during the period of 1827-1830” to his reading of the scientific literature, which was dedicated to that issue both in the North and in the South, in particular to the doctoral dissertation by the UCL historiographer Sébastien Dubois L’invention de la Belgique. Genèse d’un Etat-Nation. 1648-1830  (The invention of Belgium. Genesis of a Nation State: 1648-1830). We note in particular Will’s remark that Dubois “after having waded through almost 2000 archival volumes is irritated by the conception that 1830 saw the creation not of the kingdom but of ‘Belgium’.”


Author(s):  
Zhenhuan Rao ◽  
Yuechen Wu ◽  
Zifei Yang ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Shijian Lu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
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Yuehan Zhang ◽  
Jiani Huang ◽  
Jiayu Shen ◽  
Yiyang Wang ◽  
...  

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