Through its analysis of the rhetorical means by which the US Congress overcame jurisdictional objections to federal action on the issue of woman suffrage, this essay argues that the stasis of jurisdiction operates as a mode of assemblage of discourses, institutions, and populations. In Congress, the woman suffrage issue helped re-organize federal…

Our project is intended to supplement and extend research that emphasizes how the rhetoric informing the euthanasia debate admits a call of conscience and how this call would have us act heroically as we acknowledge what is arguably some particular truth that is at work in the debate (e.g., only God has the right to take a life). The relationship…

This essay attempts to sort out and evaluate some commonly held notions about British debate and debaters in the light of my experience and it makes recommendations and suggests means by which the SCA could more fully utilize the tour." (Author)

The 2003 Iraq prewar intelligence failure was not simply a case of the U.S. intelligence community providing flawed data to policy-makers. It also involved subversion of the competitive intelligence analysis process, where unofficial intelligence boutiques "stovepiped" misleading intelligence assessments directly to policy-makers and…

Using a Burkeian perspective, the authors focus on the six debates during the 1980 Republican primary debate. (PD)

Sketches a brief history of the 1858 debates and analyzes their argumentative patterns. Speculates about the transformation of controversial questions through public debate. (PD)

Demonstrates how the "Old Feminist" movement, originating in broad humanitarian concerns that affirmed woman's selfhood, eventually was transformed into the essentially different "Woman Suffrage" movement. Analyzes a key episode, the 1860 divorce debate. (PD)

Examines the role of parliamentary debate in the demise of the friendship between Fox and Burke over the issue of the French Revolution and English domestic reform. Investigates the drawing out of Fox's position and the polarization of opinion in Commons by Burke's rhetorical destruction of traditional Whig principles. (JMF)

The Equal Rights Amendment controversy is studied as a conflict between two world views that are created by the rhetoric generated by proponents and opponents. Descriptions of the settings, actions, characters, and motivations of the opposing worlds reveal little common ground on which traditional argumentation can occur. (JMF)

Argues that the news media actively promoted presidential debates, sought to establish expectations, and then became active critics. Concludes that presidential skills were seen as more important than message content. Notes that the current format does not enlarge public understanding and suggests a Lincoln-Douglas format in the future. (PD)

Explores how argumentation in the eighteenth-century miracles controversy (a century-long debate in Britain over the reasonableness of revealed religion) exhibited a controlling concern for procedural considerations. Discusses how the Deists and the Orthodox apologists used their argumentative force to advance rival methods for evaluating miracle…

This essay examines the ways in which the rhetoric of the reparations debate elucidates the varying accounts of history favored by Americans of different backgrounds, the political and ideological foundations underlying different perspectives on the nature and uses of history, and the norms guiding public deliberation in the contemporary U.S.…