On Numerical Arguments in Policymaking
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v42i4.7175Abstract
The use of numerical arguments has become part and parcel of evidence-based policymaking, serving increasingly as scientific evidence which is used to back up policy decisions and to convince citizens of the acceptability of those decisions. But numerical arguments and their quality and potential persuasive role in the specific institutional context of policymaking have received little treatment within argumentation theory. This paper endeavours to explain the forms, functions, and quality of numerical arguments in policymaking.
References
Akhtar, J., A. L. Garcia, L. Saenz, S. Kuravi, F. Shu and K. Kota2020. Can face masks offer protection from airborne sneeze and cough droplets in close-up, face-to-face human interactions?—A quantita-tive study. Physics of Fluids 32: 127112.
Barbi, G. N. 2018. The depoliticization of the political. An Arendtian account of expertise in politics. Raisons Politiques 70(2): 75-96.
Battersby, M. 2013. The rhetoric of numbers. Statistical inference as argumentation. In OSSA conference archive 5. <https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA5/papersandcommentaries/5>.
Bentham, J. 1952. The handbook of political fallacies. New York: The Academy Library.
De Bruijn, H. 2017. The art of political framing. How politicians con-vince us that they are right. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Desrosières. A. 2008. Pour une sociologie historique de la quantifi-cation. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole des mines.
Davis, P. J. and R. Hersh. 1987. Rhetoric and mathematics. In The rhetoric of the human sciences. Language and argument in scholar-ship and public affairs, eds. J. S. Nelson, A. Megill and D. N. McCloskey, 53-68. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison.
Die Welt. 2021. URL accessed 25 August 2022: <https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus225868061/Corona-Politik-Wie-das-Innenministerium-Wissenschaftler-einspannte.html>
Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. 2022. URL accessed 25 August 2022: <https://www.rivm.nl/hpv-humaan-papillomavirus>
European Commission 2021. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A competi-tion policy fit for new challenges. COM(2021)713.
European Commission 2022. 2030 climate and energy framework. URL accessed 25 August 2022: <https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/climate-strategies-targets/2030-climate-energy-framework_en>
Fawcett, P, M., C. Hay Flinders and M. Wood, eds. 2017. Anti-politics, depoliticization, and governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finlayson. A. 2017. What is the point of parliamentary debate?: Delib-eration, oratory, opposition and spectacle in the British House of Commons. Redescriptions 20(1): 11-31.
Fischer, F. and H. Gottweiss, eds. (2012). The argumentative turn revisited. Public policy as communicative practice. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Fogel, R. W. and Engerman, S. L. 1974. Time on the cross: the econom-ics of American negro slavery. New York: W. W. Norton and Com-pany.
Gandhi, M., Beyrer, C. and E. Goosby. 2020. Masks do more than protect others during COVID-19: Reducing the inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to protect the wearer. Journal of General Internal Medicine 35: 3063-3066.
Garssen, B. 2016. Problem-solving argumentative patterns in plenary debates of the European Parliament. Argumentation 30: 25-43.
Good, I. J. 1962. A classification of fallacious arguments and interpre-tations. Technometrics 4(1): 125-132.
Grootendorst, Rob. 1997. Jeremy Bentham’s Handbook of political fallacies. In Historical foundations of Informal Logic, eds. D. Walton and A. Brinton, 114-124. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Hamblin, C. 1970. Fallacies. Methuen: London.
Heywood, A. 2007. Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoeken, H. 2001. Anecdotal, statistical, and causal evidence: Their perceived and actual persuasiveness. Argumentation 15: 421-437.
Howlett, M., M. Ramesh and A. Perl. 2009. Studying public policy, policy cycles and policy subsystems (3rd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Koblitz, N. 1981. Mathematics as propaganda. In Mathematics tomor-row, ed. L.A. Steen, 111-120. Springer: New York.
Limon, S. M. and D. C. Kazoleas. 2004. A comparison of exemplar and statistical evidence in reducing counter‐arguments and responses to a message, Communication Research Reports 21(3): 291-298.
Majone, G. 1989. Evidence, argument, and persuasion in the policy process. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
McCloskey, D. N. 1998. The rhetoric of economics. The University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI.
Nachmias, D. and C. Felbinger. 1982. Utilization in the policy cycle: Directions for research. Review of Policy Research 2(2): 300-308.
NOS. 2021. URL accessed on August 25 2022: <https://nos.nl/artikel/2367971-duits-ministerie-schakelde-wetenschappers-in-om-corona-angst-op-te-wekken>
Parkhurst, J. 2017. The politics of evidence: From evidence-based policy to the good governance of evidence. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Perelman, C. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric: A trea-tise on argumentation, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Porter, T. M. 1995. Trust in numbers. The pursuit of objectivity in sci-ence and public life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Scriven, M. 1987. Fallacies of statistical substitution. Argumentation 1(3): 333-349.
Secor, M. 1989. Bentham’s book of fallacies: Rhetorician in spite of himself. Philosophy and Rhetoric 22: 83-93.
Snyder, S. 2013. The simple, the complicated, and the complex: Educa-tional reform through the lens of complexity theory. In OECD edu-cation working papers. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Turiel J. S, R. K. Kaufmann. 2021. Evidence of air quality data misre-porting in China: An impulse indicator saturation model compari-son of local government-reported and U.S. embassy-reported PM2.5 concentrations (2015–2017). PLOS ONE 16(4): e0249063.
Unicef. 2022. Child labour. URL accessed 14 February 2022: <https://www.unicef-irc.org/research/child-labour/>
Weiss, C. H. 1979. The many meanings of research utilization. Public Administration Review 39(5): 426-431.
World Health Organisation. 2007. Multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Zebregs, S., B. van den Putte, P. Neijens and A. de Graaf. 2015. The differential impact of statistical and narrative evidence on beliefs, attitude, and intention: A meta-analysis. Health Communication 30(3): 282-289.
