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Article published In:
Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 8:2 (2019) ► pp.214–244

The strategic use of argumentation from example in re-evaluating a people

The case of Al Aswany’s pro-democratization columns

| Ain Shams University, Cairo
With the help of the extended pragma-dialectical theory, this paper aims to analyze how Al Aswany, an Egyptian political columnist who argued in favor of the feasibility of democratization before the Arab Spring, maneuvered strategically by argumentation from example in two of his columns in supporting the standpoint that the Egyptian people had become no longer politically inactive. The analysis is conducted in view of the institutional preconditions of political columns and the specific rhetorical exigency a columnist may face in this specific argumentative situation.
Keywords: argumentation from example, resort to hierarchically arranged examples, representativeness, strategic maneuvering, sufficiency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The argumentative predicament of evaluating a political group by means of examples
    • 2.1Argumentation from example: An overview
    • 2.2Potential maneuvers in evaluating a political group
    • 2.3The characterization of political columns as a macro context
  • 3.The image of the Egyptian people and political activism in Mubarak’s era: A description of the rhetorical exigency
  • 4.The “Egypt Awakened” case
  • 5.“The Coming Civil Disobedience on April 6th.” Case
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.17031.oma
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