Dissertation
Arguing against accusations of national disloyalty. Analyzing sequences of confrontational maneuvering in Dutch plenary debates on EU issues
On the 4th of June, Isabella Steenbergen successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Isabella on this achievement!
- Author
- Isabella Steenbergen
- Date
- 04 June 2025
- Links
- Leiden University Repository
In Dutch plenary debates on EU issues – such as asylum, nitrogen, or the corona recovery fund – politicians who hold a pro-European standpoint can be accused of national disloyalty. They are then criticized for prioritizing European interests over Dutch interests. Such accusations occur in two main variants. The first, driven by ideological beliefs about national sovereignty, accuses the opponent of disregarding Dutch interests. The second alleges that the opponent misleads Dutch Parliament by providing factually inadequate EU information. Both variants can portray the accused as a poor representative of the Netherlands, thereby weakening his or her position in the debate. Based on the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, this qualitative-empirical study examines how politicians respond to accusations of national disloyalty as a confrontational strategy. These responses are systematically analyzed as part of prototypical strategic sequences. An analysis of debates during the Rutte II, III, and IV cabinets reveals that accused politicians employ aligned confrontational counterstrategies in an attempt to reasonably and effectively restore their potentially undermined representational authority. They do so while managing the ideological or factual conflict provoked by the accusation within the relevant sequence.