Shale gas debate in Europe: Pro-and-con dialectics and argumentative polylogues

674773 research-article2016 DCM0010.1177/1750481316674773Discourse & CommunicationLewiński Article Discourse & Communication 2016, Vol. 10(6) 553–575 Shale gas debate in Europe: © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: Pro-and-con dialectics and sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1750481316674773 argumentative polylogues dcm.sagepub.com Marcin Lewiński Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Abstract In this article I scrutinise a crucial tension in understanding the debate over shale gas production in Europe. On the one hand, analyses predominantly grasp the debate in terms of pro-and- con dialectics, as if the pro-shale gas camp faced the anti-shale gas camp in a dyadic clash of opposing voices. On the other hand, it is commonly recognised that this debate is driven by multi-party and multi-position argumentative dynamics. In this broader context, I focus on one pivotal contribution to the debate – Gazprom’s press release from October 2013 outlining Russia’s energy giant’s strategy of dealing with unconventional gas production. I employ concepts and methods of argumentative discourse analysis to contend that an arguer to a multi-party debate – argumentative polylogue – faces a number of constraints and opportunities that cannot be adequately grasped in terms of dyadic pro-and-con dialectics. The analysis reveals how Gazprom needs to simultaneously design its discourse to address a number of other parties who might also disagree among themselves: from Greenpeace to European Union governments to shale gas companies. I show why and how a stakeholder analysis used in organisational communication might lead to a better understanding of this form of multi-party public argumentation. Keywords Argumentation, climate change, dialectics, energy policy, fracking, Gazprom, hydraulic fracturing, polylogue, shale gas, stakeholder analysis Corresponding author: Marcin Lewiński, ArgLab, Nova Institute of Philosophy, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Avenida de Berna 26, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal. Email: m.lewinski@fcsh.unl.pt Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 554 Discourse & Communication 10(6) Introduction Public debates about controversial issues – be it war in Syria, government bailout of private banks or fossil fuel exploration – tend to be characterised by two interestingly contrasting features. On the one hand, any given policy issue has its backers and critics who persistently trade their pros and cons in a discursive process which often leads to a dichotomisation (Dascal, 2008) or even polarisation (Sunstein, 2002) of the issue (see also Govier, 2007). In this process, two extreme positions (say, categorical ‘yes’ and categorical ‘no’) dominate the debate, thereby excluding some moderate, mediating positions. On the other hand, at least in open pluralistic societies, there is a wide array of organisations (governmental and non-governmental), political parties, activist and civil society groups, businesses, associations, and so forth, who have their stake in the issue and contribute their varied positions to the debate, taking advantage of the communica- tive opportunities given by the digital media (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012; Hopke and Simis, 2015; Lewíski and Mohammed, 2015; Marres, 2006; Rogers and Marres, 2000). While some of these groups might be on the same side of the issue (‘Bashar al-Assad should be removed as the president of Syria’), they would often have very different, even opposing, arguments or cases for their stance (‘because this will let us create the Islamic State’ versus ‘because this will let us create a new democratic government strong enough to fight the Islamic State’; see Lewíski, 2013a). The dynamics of the debate, even if indeed skewed towards two-sided polarisation, is then full of careful diplomacy, strategic building and shifting of alliances, nuanced neither . . . nor . . . arguments, third-way solutions, and so on. In brief, it unfolds in a manner far removed from the dualistic pro- and-con reconstructions. Vivid illustrations of how pluralistic elements permeate seemingly dichotomised debates can be found in empirical analyses of the climate change and energy policy discourse. Some analysts argue that contributions to the climate change debate are best treated as cases of ‘polyphonic argumentation’ (Fløttum and Dahl, 2011: 217), that is, argumentation characterised by ‘a subtle and complex staging of [multiple] voices and positions’ (Dahl and Fløttum, 2014: 404). In such a view, ‘voices and positions become important objects of study in order to understand the complexity of the debate’ (Dahl and Fløttum, 2014: 402), while the crucial goal of the analysis ‘is to explain how the interaction of claims and voices orients discursive argumentation related to the climate phenomenon’ (Fløttum and Dahl, 2011: 206). Overall, the undeniable complexity of the global debate over climate change and energy policies – such as shale gas production – is increasingly seen as resulting from two basic factors: (1) the subtle management of uncertainty and knowledge claims between the expert and lay communities and (2) the multiplicity of players, positions and places shaping the debate (Aakhus and Lewíski, 2016; Fløttum and Dahl, 2011; Pearce et al., 2015). In this contribution I further explore the apparent tension between dualistic and plu- ralistic aspects of public debates by analysing the current controversy over the produc- tion of shale gas in the European Union (EU). Shale gas is natural gas trapped in deep layers of shale rock, which can be extracted through the method of hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’). Fracking releases the gas by fracturing the rock with a mixture of water, chemical agents and sand pumped under high pressure through a network of drill pipes expanding horizontally deep underground. This method has been recently used on a Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 555 massive scale in the USA, changing its energy policies and giving rise to an on-going global controversy over its economic, environmental, social and political impact. My main point is that while the shale gas debate – both in the USA and the EU – is typically framed as simple pro-and-con argumentation (‘Shall we extract shale gas or not?’), it is in fact far more complex. Crucially, various opponents of shale gas production defend their anti-fracking positions using distinct, and often outright contradictory, reasons. I will make it clear by analysing argumentation of the Russian energy company Gazprom and its relation to the position of the environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) Greenpeace. Based on this analysis, I will show that the clash of positions and exchange of reasons in the shale gas debate generates a multi-party argumentative discussion – or argumentative polylogue – that cannot be adequately rendered using the analytic framework of simple pro-and-con dialectics. Argumentative polylogues are discussions which involve many protagonists (and antagonists) of contrary (rather than contradictory) positions. Frack or frack off? In a sense, public debate about shale gas and fracking will inevitably be framed in binary terms. From an argumentative perspective, public policy issues are instigated by practi- cal questions which require answers supported by practical reasoning (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012; Fischer, 2003: ch. 9). These questions will characteristically be simple yes or no questions (‘Shall we frack?’) or dichotomous alternative questions with two contradictory alternatives (‘Shall we frack or not?’) (see Lewíski, 2015). Of course, questions over fracking can easily be posed as multiple-choice alternatives (‘Shall we frack, burn more coal or run wind turbines?’) or even open Wh-questions (‘Which energy sources shall we invest in?’). In all cases, however, some practical position on fracking will be advanced with a view on other alternative energy sources (‘We should frack, shale gas is much cleaner than coal’, ‘We shouldn’t frack, shale gas is much dirtier than renewable energy’; see Cotton et al., 2014).1 That is to say, the dichotomising tendency might be driven by the ‘analytic’ factors pertaining to the very way practical issues are articulated through questions. This tendency is evident in the shale gas debate on at least two levels. In the first place, active participants to the debate often construct their arguments in terms of pro- et-contra dialectics. This is the case both with the scientists investigating the potential of shale gas, who are either for (Engelder, 2011) or against (Howarth and Ingraffea, 2011) its large-scale extraction and with the main stakeholders in shale gas production: some (such as drilling companies) are supportive of fracking, while others (e.g. envi- ronmental activists) are critical of it (Cotton et al., 2014). Furthermore, the media reporting on the issue can be more or less clearly divided into ‘pro- and anti-fracking outlets’, at least in the UK, where The Telegraph and The Times are on the pro-side, while The Guardian and The Independent are on the anti-side (Jaspal and Nerlich, 2014). Similarly, different political affiliations typically predict attitudes towards fracking: conservative Republicans in the USA are generally pro-fracking, while liberal Democrats are anti-fracking (Boudet et al., 2014; Mazur, 2016). One can even distinguish entire countries or states where pro-fracking discourse dominates, such as Poland or Pennsylvania, from those where anti-fracking voices have led to moratoria on Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 556 Discourse & Communication 10(6) shale gas exploration, such as France or New York (Boudet et al., 2014; Buttny, 2015; Jaspal et al., 2014). In the second place, many of the overviews of the debate explicitly employ the pro- and-con approach. The ‘support/opposition’ frame dominates academic studies of frack- ing and its public perceptions (Boudet et al., 2014). Accordingly, analyses of ‘Arguments for and against fracking’ (Carroll, 2014) or of ‘Arguments pro and against shale gas exploitation’ (Papatulica, 2014) abound in popular press and academic journals alike. Systemic efforts at producing a detailed and comprehensive reconstruction of the argu- ments for and against fracking have been undertaken. One such handy reconstruction is provided in an Argument Map: Shale gas production in EU member states commissioned by TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), an ‘independent research organisation’ supplying businesses and governments with knowledge innova- tions,2 and created by another Dutch organisation – The Argument Factory (De Argumentenfabriek), an ‘independent company’ specialised in producing ‘Argument Maps’ (De Argumentenkaart®) as a way of ‘visualizing information’.3 The Argument Map (see Figure 5 in Appendix 1)4 classifies arguments for and against shale gas extraction in the EU into five topical categories: energy, environment, safety, economy and politics. In this way, it gives a fairly comprehensive overview of the arguments given in favour of and against fracking. In what follows, I will use it as a useful catalogue of these arguments. All the same, while no doubt providing an adequate and meticulous overview of the arguments, the Argument Map does not and cannot fully render the shale gas debate. To start with, one can question the principle of classification here: Are the five categories jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive? Is safety not part of environmental concerns? Are energy, economy and politics arguments not inextricably intertwined? More impor- tantly, however, this Argument Map is nothing more than a visually appealing topical inventory of arguments used in the shale gas debate by one party or another. All the intri- cate details of complex argumentation – how all these arguments hang together, what the inferential relations are among them and what their overall structure is (see Freeman, 2011; Snoeck Henkemans, 1992; Van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992: ch. 7; see also Figure 1) – are lost. Briefly, by employing the theoretical concepts and methodological tools of argu- mentation theory (see Van Eemeren et al., 2014), one could get at a much more satisfactory ‘analytic overview’ of the pro- and anti-fracking arguments. The final reconstruction would probably be not unlike Wellman’s conductive argument in its third pattern, where the bal- ance of pro-and-con considerations is given (see Blair and Johnson, 2011). The point to be made here, however, is this: even if the reconstruction of the pro-et- contra arguments in the shale gas debate was empirically exhaustive and adequately informed by the concepts and methods of argumentation theory, it would still not capture some central problems of argumentation in this debate. The reason for this is that the (quasi-)logical reconstruction of argumentation of the two sides to the debate cannot be faithfully attributed to any two existing parties, nor does it cover the complexities and nuances of careful case-building by the parties engaged in this debate. In order to under- stand and evaluate the strategic choices of arguers in a debate – a central aspiration of today’s argumentation theory (Van Eemeren, 2010) – one would have to assume some one-to-one relation between an arguer and her arguments. This assumption holds, for instance, in the dialectical theories of argumentation, where the proponent and the Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 557 opponent are co-defined with the position they defend or attack and the (counter-) arguments they produce (Lewíski and Aakhus, 2014; Van Eemeren et al., 2014). It also holds in a number of typical contexts for argumentation, such as legal trials, intercollegi- ate debates, marital arguments and so forth, where one actual party constitutes the pro- side and the other constitutes the contra-side. Here, however, such a relation between the two sides and those behind them cannot be assumed: the supporters and critics of frack- ing are not engaged in a clash of opinions similar to dialectical proponents and oppo- nents, in the sense that they do not exchange pro-arguments and contra-arguments in the way rendered by the Argument Map or any such similar ‘dialectical reconstruction’. In fact, as I argue in the following, there are more than two (dialectically distinct) parties to the debate, and any party can use arguments from both sides of the map. To be sure, one can more or less clearly distinguish groups of stakeholders behind the two sides of the debate. On the yes-let’s-frack side, we have shale gas companies; other businesses who benefit directly from shale gas exploration (construction, transportation) or indirectly from lower gas and energy prices (e.g. chemical industry); energy consul- tancies; some local, regional and national authorities; some local communities; and the Not-In-My-Back-Yard consumers paying lower energy bills.5 Each of these parties expresses its own arguments from the ‘for’ side of the inventory collected in the Argument Map. For instance, national authorities might be looking towards reducing the depend- ence on gas supplies from gas exporting countries (in the EU – mainly Russia) (see Politics; Figure 5 in Appendix 1), satisfying the growing demand for energy (see Energy; Figure 5 in Appendix 1), and all kinds of economic benefits (additional revenues, lower energy prices, etc.) (Cotton et al., 2014; Jaspal et al., 2014; Jaspal and Nerlich, 2014). Local communities might instead stress the opportunities for increased regional employ- ment and upgraded infrastructure (see Economy; Figure 5 in Appendix 1). The no-we-shouldn’t-frack camp includes various environmentalist groups (Green parties, NGOs, activists such as Frack Off in the UK), and many of the affected local communities. Here, the international NGOs (e.g. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth) will stress shale gas’s negative impact on the global climate change and its hindering the transition to renewable energy (see Energy; Figure 5 in Appendix 1), while local communities will point out its threats to local safety and well-being (see Environment and Safety; Figure 5 in Appendix 1). Despite such pervasive binary understandings, in the shale gas debate we do not simply have two clearly defined ‘discourse coalitions’ facing each other as a collective protagonist and a collective antagonist:6 What is perhaps unsurprising about emerging storylines around shale gas development is the formation of competing framings of the issue that divide into two distinct discourse coalitions. […] It must be noted that such coalitions are neither definitive nor complete – the fluidity and context sensitivity of discourse coalitions mean that actors and institutions can move within and between storylines and so discourse coalitions shift and re-emerge in different configurations. (Cotton et al., 2014: 435) As a result, analysts recognise some ‘strange bedfellows’ on each side of the debate. For instance, some members of the Conservative Party in the UK – which overall is emphatically pro-fracking – support the anti-fracking movements in their local con- stituencies, thus allying themselves with ‘a new generation of eco-warriors’ (Neate, Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 558 Discourse & Communication 10(6) 2013: online, quoted in Cotton et al., 2014: 436). It has been reported that the ‘opposition alliance’ in some UK protests is in fact ‘a surprisingly disparate bunch’ (Henley, 2013: online, quoted in Mazur, 2016: 219). Another difficulty is that some parties in the debate are hard to categorise. As an example, witness the cleanliness versus dirt of shale gas ‘storyline’ analysed by Cotton et al. (2014). Here, the authors clearly distinguish two ‘contrasting discourse coalitions’: shale exploration companies, energy consultants, academic environmental scientists and geophysicists, and Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury, who argue for the cleanliness of shale gas, are ‘contrasted with’ environmental NGOs, the Green Party, and local and national activist organisations who take it to be a dirty source of energy. However, there are a number of ‘other actors involved in the storyline’ who do not straightforwardly belong to either of these two opposing sides. Apart from the UK’s various regulatory and environ- mental agencies, big fossil fuel companies such as Shell and British Petroleum (BP) fall into this category (Cotton et al., 2014: 435). What is it that makes them stand out from the main line of binary disagreement over fracking? They would surely share many of the arguments on the pro-side: the principle of continued reliance on supposedly ‘clean’ fossil fuels such as natural gas, the need to have energy sources other than renewables to meet the growing demand and secure uninterrupted supply, and so on. Yet at least some of the major (conventional) oil and gas producers are more or less openly anti- shale gas exploration, with the chief (although often covert) argument being that shale gas and oil can directly compete on the market with their products, conventional gas and oil. In the larger European (not just British) context, such is the case with Gazprom. Case study: Gazprom Gazprom is Russia’s state-controlled energy giant and a major player in the global energy market. Being the world’s largest natural gas producer (17% of global reserves and 12% of global output),7 Gazprom certainly has a stake in the so-called ‘shale gas revolution’, which has already significantly altered the global gas market.8 All the same, it has remained conspicuously reticent about the challenges fracking poses to its conventional gas production, a strategy some analysts have seen as a ‘denial’ or ‘a “head in the sands” position’ (Elder, 2012; Shiryaevskaya, 2012). Such reticence is all the more surprising given that Gazprom is ‘at risk of becoming the world’s biggest loser from the new tech- nology to drill shale rock’ (Shiryaevskaya, 2012: online). This risk, some argue, has already materialised: ‘A vast northern energy project frozen, billions of dollars in lost profit, legal disputes and investigations – the creeping shale gas revolution has left Gazprom, Russia’s state gas monopoly, reeling’ (Elder, 2012: online). Clearly, Gazprom has good reasons to be against shale gas extraction and its success on the global energy market. But is it? Some analysts and stakeholders have seen Gazprom as an active, although characteristically hidden from view, actor in the debate. Conservative American analysts blatantly argue that Gazprom, together with the Russian authorities at the Kremlin, is waging ‘the hidden war against fracking’ by providing (material and oth- erwise) support to the anti-fracking campaign in the EU (Smith, 2012). This argument has become prevalent in the eastern EU member states traditionally dependent on Russian energy supplies, such as Poland (Jaspal et al., 2014) and Romania (Papatulica, 2014).9 To paraphrase the main thrust of the argument, environmental campaigners serve as ‘useful Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 559 idiots’ by protesting a technology which has a good potential for undermining Russia’s strong yet undesirable leverage over Europe based on Russian vast oil and gas resources. In this way, gullible ecological voices stand hand-in-hand with Russia’s vested, and ethi- cally questionable, geopolitical interests. Indeed, it has been noticed that Russian ‘state run media and Gazprom talk up the environmental dangers of fracking, an odd phenom- enon in a country that usually keeps ecological concerns at the bottom of its agenda’ (Elder, 2012: online). Again, do we have here ‘strange bedfellows’ who ally themselves using the principle that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’? To answer this question, I analyse one of Gazprom’s rare press releases directly addressing the shale gas exploration. The short release – ‘Gazprom to continue shale gas market investigation’ – was published on the company’s English website on 29 October 2013 and accompanied by a boxed text simply entitled ‘Background’: Gazprom to continue shale gas market investigation October 29, 2013, 13:05 The Gazprom Board of Directors took notice of the results of a survey on the shale gas sector development throughout the globe. It was mentioned that the core structural units of Gazprom Group continued investigating the progress with shale gas production. The meeting participants affirmed that at the moment shale gas production in Russia would be inexpedient due to the abundance of conventional gas reserves with their recovery cost being considerably lower than the estimated cost of shale gas production. In addition, it was pointed out that shale gas production was related to considerable environmental risks. Meanwhile, active media coverage of the said issue resulted in the popularization of natural gas in the world, which is a favorable factor for Gazprom being a reliable supplier of this fuel. The Management Committee was tasked to continue the investigation of the shale gas sector development throughout the globe and to report the results to the Board of Directors in the fourth quarter of 2014. (Source: http://www.gazprom.com/press/news/2013/october/article175726/) Despite its striking brevity and objectifying reporting style, the release is a highly argumentative text. In the first place, it mentions that a good decision should be ‘expedi- ent’ or ‘favourable’, which are the main criteria for assessing deliberative discourse, already recognised by Aristotle in Rhetoric. Second, it explicitly states two arguments from the anti-fracking pool (see Figure 5 in Appendix 1): that fracking is a costly (and thus potentially economically unviable) method of gas extraction, at least compared to traditional methods, and that it poses ‘considerable environmental risks’. Third, it states that the media frenzy about fracking helps popularising natural gas at large, thus boost- ing Gazprom’s position as a major, and ‘reliable’, gas supplier. Even in such a short text, one can see that Gazprom does not easily ‘fit’ into the simple pro-and-con understanding Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 560 Discourse & Communication 10(6) of the shale gas debate. Most importantly, none of the serious opponents of fracking pointing out its ‘considerable environmental risks’ could readily glee at the prospect of increasing fossil fuel production and consumption, whether in the form of shale or any other natural gas. Gazprom does that in the very next sentence. Its blatant lack of concern for issues related to climate change would put it firmly in the pro-fracking camp (see Cotton et al., 2014) – except that it clearly is not there. Useful elaboration of these points can be found in the ‘Background’ box placed imme- diately under the laconic press release: Background Between 2012 and 2013 commercial shale gas production was still underway in the USA and Canada only. In 2012 shale gas production in the USA amounted to some 270 billion cubic meters. The share of shale gas in the national gas output continued to grow. Meanwhile, over the past period of time more than a half of total shale gas output from North American fields remained loss-making, which is proved by the considerable reduction of the number of drilling rigs meant for constructing gas production wells in the USA as well as by major gas companies selling their shale assets. According to experts, the increase in shale gas production may contribute to turning the USA into the LNG exporter. However, it is impossible to implement export LNG projects without relevant permits issued by the US federal agencies which are interested in maintaining energy security in the country and keeping the domestic market prices low. Under such conditions the implementation of all the announced export LNG projects in North America seems unrealistic. Certain factors continue constraining the organization of commercial shale gas production in Europe. In particular, these include limited resource potential of the region, high population density and absence of public access to drilling and services. Pilot operation of a number of exploratory wells in Europe, most notably in Poland, turned out to be unsatisfactory despite government support and tax benefits. In Asia it is the People’s Republic of China that is considered as the most promising country in terms of shale gas production development. However, in China this industry develops slower than it was planned due to a more complex geological structure of local shale gas deposits, poorly developed infrastructure, water and energy shortage as well as very high population density in the Chinese regions most promising in terms of shale gas production. Shale gas industry development is related to certain environmental risks because it demands drilling a great number of wells and injecting considerable amounts of water mixed with sand and chemicals into the stratum. Therefore, there is a danger of polluting the land surface and the subsurface waters. At present, the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing is imposed in European countries (France, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and others) and some Australian states. In addition, the moratorium is preserved in the state of New York where a part of Marcellus, one of the major US shale basins is located. Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 561 In this seemingly purely informative text, Gazprom substantiates its arguments so briefly mentioned in the actual press release. In fact, a detailed argumentative reconstruc- tion (see Van Eemeren et al., 1993) reveals a complex argumentation structure in Gazprom’s discourse (see Figure 1).10 Figure 1. Argumentation structure of Gazprom’s press release. Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 562 Discourse & Communication 10(6) Two factors are crucial here. First, the argumentative goals (see Mohammed, 2016) of the company remain somewhat obscure. What exactly is the chief message or communi- cative function of these two short texts? Relatedly, who is the primary intended target of them (see Levinson, 1988)? The most immediate (even if implicit) standpoint on which Gazprom’s argumentation converges is that the ‘shale gas sector development throughout the globe will not succeed’ (1.1.1 in Figure 1). Pragmatically speaking, it takes the form of a reasoned prediction grounded in the continued ‘investigation of the shale gas sector development throughout the globe’. High costs of production (1.1.1.1a in Figure 1), limi- tation of production to North America (1.1.1.1b in Figure 1) and environmental risks (1.1.1.1c in Figure 1) taken together do not bode well for the shale gas business. However, this prediction serves primarily to reassure all those concerned about Gazprom’s future (chiefly its owners, investors and customers) that its main line of business, conventional gas production and distribution, will not be threatened by shale gas and will continue to thrive. This is further supported by the argument that natural gas is a prospective energy source deserving global popularisation (see 1.2a and 1.2b in Figure 1). Second, it is noteworthy that Gazprom is not providing a set of reasons fully consist- ent with the anti-fracking campaigners in the EU. Rather, it seems to be allying with them through some kind of a marriage of convenience. Argumentative analysis can quickly reveal that the company is in fact attacking shale gas extraction from a position diametrically opposite to that of environmentalist anti-fracking campaigners. In the larger issue – What shall our long-term energy policy be? – the positions seem to be distributed as follows: Gazprom Shale gas supporters Environmentalists (Conservative: (Moderately progressive: (Progressive: conventional fossil unconventional fossil fuel: renewable green energy: fuel: oil and gas) shale oil and gas) solar, wind, geothermal) Gazprom is out to conserve the status quo which allows it to control gas prices and reap handsome profits. Shale gas supporters argue for a moderate progress, which pre- serves the same basic fossil fuel paradigm, but with a little turn towards a new, ‘cleaner’ and ‘cheaper’ (as they want to see it) technology. Environmentalists are against the fossil fuel paradigm altogether – for all kinds of reasons (pollution, climate change, dwindling resources) it has to be abandoned in favour of a new paradigm of using renewable sources of energy; no pride in popularity and reliability of natural gas can be taken. Depending on one’s ideological preferences and interests, the major line of disagreement will be put somewhere between these three different parties. How is it, then, that Gazprom can end up in the same camp with environmentalists, while clearly occupying the opposite extreme in the continuum of options? Perhaps a better illustration can be given in the form of a triangle (see Figure 2; cf. Lewíski and Aakhus, 2014). Here, one can clearly see how each party faces two distinct opponents, who also disa- gree with each other. One can further easily distinguish possible alliances. These would Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 563 Figure 2. Three main positions/players in the shale gas debate in the EU. depend on how the main issue is framed. Assuming that only yes/no questions are asked (see earlier), three such alliances are possible: 1. Shall we uphold the current status quo regarding energy sources in the EU? GAZPROM: PRO SHALE GAS SUPPORTERS + ENVIRONMENTALISTS: CON 2. Shall we continue the exploitation of fossil fuels? SHALE GAS SUPPORTERS + GAZPROM: PRO ENVIRONMENTALISTS: CON 3. Shall we invest in new fossil fuel technologies, such as shale gas? SHALE GAS SUPPORTERS: PRO GAZPROM + ENVIRONMENTALISTS: CON In the third scenario – the one discussed here – environmentalists indeed might be put in the same camp with Gazprom, but the object of criticism is markedly different: for envi- ronmentalists, it is the very referent (‘fossil fuel technologies’), for Gazprom, the predicate (‘new’). It is clear that on other related issues (questions 1 and 2) they are adversaries. Unsurprisingly, then, Gazprom, together with its ostensible competitors, shale gas companies, is seen by Greenpeace as a ‘carbon dinosaur’ perpetuating the same ‘dirty energy industry’: As easily extracted fossil fuels become scarce and global consumption of fossil fuels grows, the dirty energy industry is turning to more and more extreme methods of extraction. The latest madness is ‘fracking’ […] The unconventional fuel expansion is, in fact, a delaying tactic. Fracking, deepwater drilling and tar sands extraction are dangerous fossil fuel fantasies in which we are supposed to think we can postpone the energy revolution and not move firmly in the direction of renewable energy. This delaying tactic has a massive price associated with it. […] The world doesn’t need more gas to burn. […] We just don’t need dirty energy expansion. […] In the absence of a global agreement on greenhouse gas emission reductions, it falls on every government – national and local – and business to implement clean and safe energy solutions, instead of scouring the ends of the earth for more dirty fuel. And, it falls on every citizen to demand the extinction of the carbon dinosaurs. (Naidoo, 2013: online) Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 564 Discourse & Communication 10(6) Greenpeace’s argumentation thus includes reasons directly contracting that of Gazprom (‘The world doesn’t need more gas to burn’). Moreover, its anti-fracking stance takes the form of a plea or call for ‘clean and safe energy solutions’, issued on the basis of a value-based practical argument: the fracking business should not succeed, even though there is a real danger it will. This is markedly different from Gazprom’s research- based epistemic prediction that it will not succeed, even as natural gas should become more popular than ever. Notably, Greenpeace’s message is also directed at a different set of targets: citizens, governments and businesses themselves, who are all in a position to curb the continued expansion of fossil fuel energy. This morally substantiated plea for ‘the energy revolution’ again contrasts sharply with Gazprom’s prudential reassurance of investors and shareholders – based on a cost–benefit and risk assessment – that the ‘conventional gas reserves’ are a solution for years to come. These sharp differences are evidenced in the fact that precisely at a time when Gazprom’s press release was published (October 2013), 30 Greenpeace activists were held prisoner in Russia over protesting against Gazprom’s drilling for oil in the Arctic (the so-called Arctic 30). Greenpeace activists were unequivocal that the main line of disagreement here is ‘Gazprom vs. Greenpeace’ (Weyler, 2013). Given these obvious contrasts, what, then, are the argumentative (better: dialectical) relations between Gazprom and Greenpeace? These two parties to the debate can hardly be seen as argumentative allies for the ‘we shouldn’t frack’ position, embracing a consistent set of arguments and starting points. Rather, they are fierce opponents, disagreeing on almost every point regarding best energy sources for Europe (and the rest of the world). It is also hard to speak here of two separate issues or sub-discussions that can be reconstructed from the broader debate. Breaking up a multi-party discus- sion that connects multiple issues is a methodologically difficult, if not unfeasible, task in situations like this (see Lewíski and Aakhus, 2014; Mohammed, 2016). Arguers involved with multiple possible opponents in a network of related issues and disagreements design their discourse accordingly, and this makes a simple dyadic reconstruction inadequate. Multi-stakeholder communication as argumentative polylogue A possible solution is to treat debates such as the shale gas debate in the EU as a poly- logue. The term polylogue has been used by discourse and conversation analysts, literary scholars, logicians and philosophers (see Chen, 2010; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2004; Sylvan, 1985) to designate any form of interaction, or dialogue, that involves more than only two participants. In argumentation theory, polylogue can be understood as a discussion where more than two opposing positions are discussed (Lewíski, 2014, 2015). A sup- porter of a given position – whether an individual arguer or a collective of arguers – is a distinct party to a debate. More precisely, a party can be defined as a holder of a position together with the arguments supporting this position (i.e. a unique case for the position). In this sense, argumentative polylogue amounts to any multi-party discussion (Lewíski, 2013a, 2014). Additionally, many public polylogues over controversial issues such as shale gas spread beyond one single venue and relate to other issues. Polylogues thus Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 565 Figure 3. Dialectical versus polylogical situation. Source: Lewiński, 2013b. involve a number of different, incompatible positions; parties (or players) which defend these positions; and places where discussion over multiple issues develops (Aakhus and Lewíski, 2016). As a result, arguers engage not in a simple expansion of a dyadic ‘disagreement space’ between two dialectical parties (Van Eemeren et al., 1993: 95ff.), but rather in a complex network of overlapping and criss-crossing disagreements which are called out and expanded by different parties (Aakhus and Lewíski, 2016). Accordingly, arguers need to employ forms of argumentation different from those designed for simple dyadic encounters, both in terms of their rational quality and strate- gic shape. Similarly, argumentation analysts require new models to adequately grasp and evaluate arguers’ polylogical discourse. This difference can be represented in a simple scheme (see Figure 3). In the analysis of actual cases, the chief question is who the main parties are (who is A, B, C, D, …, N) and what exactly the relations between their positions and arguments are. This would be the first step towards a polylogical understanding of much of public argumentation. In the case of Gazprom’s press release – and other argumentative contri- butions to the shale gas debate – a good place to start is a simple question: Who might be the intended addressees of a given contribution? Who is Gazprom talking to? Clearly, the company puts forth certain arguments which directly counter the case of shale gas sup- porters (it’s not an economically viable technology, it will not revolutionise the global energy market, it’s not a clean technology etc.). But this is only part of the story. As discussed earlier, Gazprom cannot be straightforwardly allocated either the pro- or the con-slot in the two-sided dialectical exchange. Instead, its arguments play a role in a more complex constellation of parties. Argumentation analysts can grasp this polylogical constellation of parties by drawing inspiration from a stakeholder analysis of corporate communication. Stakeholder theory argues that the best way to understand and guide decision-making in an organisation is to focus on its relations with various stakeholders (Freeman, 1984). Stakeholders, according to one of a great many definitions, ‘are persons or groups with legitimate inter- ests in procedural and/or substantive aspects of corporate activity’ (Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 67; see Miles, 2012; Mitchell et al., 1997).11 Who the actual stakeholders are for a given organisation is a much debated practical and theoretical issue. Lacking general consensus, for the present purpose, we can resort to a simple schematic represen- tation (see Figure 4). Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 566 Discourse & Communication 10(6) Figure 4. Stakeholders of a firm. Source: Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 69. In principle, then, any decision of an organisation is expected to take into account the interests of at least these eight types of stakeholders.12 This, of course, requires multi- party communication and conflict-management – in short, it requires polylogical argu- mentation. The main tenets of a stakeholder approach from an argumentation perspective can be briefly summarised as follows: 1. It is a theory of practical reason, that is, of decision-making in the context of managing an organisation.13 2. It combines descriptive (what is done), normative (what should be done) and instrumental (what can be done given the goals) aspects; in short, it focuses on ‘reasonable strategic action’ (Friedman and Miles, 2002: 2). 3. Crucially, it ‘decentres organizational discourse by replacing privileged manage- rial monologues with multilateral stakeholder dialogues’ (Friedman and Miles, 2002: 3, emphasis added; see Calton and Kurland, 1995); as a result, stakeholder approach is defined by ‘the requirement of simultaneous attention to stakeholder interests’ (Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 67). 4. Since the theory ‘views the corporation as an organizational entity through which numerous and diverse participants accomplish multiple, and not always entirely congruent, purposes’ (Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 70), in analysing organisational discourse it focuses on its functions in conflict- or disagreement- management. The chief task of decision-makers is thus that ‘of balancing the conflicting claims of multiple stakeholders’ (Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 79). These theoretical premises are relevant, indeed central, to the study of argumentative polylogues, especially in the context of public debates involving corporations. Here, it provides an adequate framework for identifying the parties in the shale gas debate. In its press release (including the ‘Background’), Gazprom clearly engages in the said form of a polylogue, namely, a ‘multilateral stakeholder dialogue’. The company Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 567 quite clearly, even if implicitly, addresses its investors, shareholders (Russian govern- ment) and employees with arguments that its core business is and will be doing fine and that they should not really worry about the threat from shale gas production. Customers, including national gas providers in the EU, hear that they are getting a good, ‘reliable’ deal on Gazprom’s gas, so they should not look forward to shale gas to come and replace it in their private homes and entire countries. Environmental groups get Gazprom’s commitment to clean gas production and care for natural resources. Simultaneously, possible investors in shale gas projects are warned that current attempts in Poland and China are, and possibly will remain, far from successful for a good number of reasons. And so forth. A group of stakeholders are, almost by definition, inconsistent in their positions. Investors seeking to maximise profits and their capital returns will characteristically oppose employees focused on agreeable working conditions; governmental regulations might curb the freedom of shareholders, and so on. Here, the Russian government (owner of over 50% of Gazprom’s shares, who gets no less than 10% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the company’s profits), has goals clearly at odds with EU governments (Gazprom’s customers via their national energy companies), who simply want to lower their high gas bills paid to Gazprom and get a genuinely ‘reliable’ supplier. On the third hand (see the triangle in Figure 2 earlier), environmental groups argue for a substantially different energy model, where the role of fossil fuels (both in the form of conventional Russian gas and home-grown shale gas) is successively reduced to naught. Managing such a set of addressees qua stakeholders is very different from facing one opponent with a consistent set of arguments supporting one position. Each party under- taking a ‘reasonable strategic action’ in such a context would need to craft its argumenta- tion so as to address all possible stakeholders with their multiple conflicting positions. This is precisely the challenge posed by polylogical argumentation. One way of facing this challenge practically here – other than Gazprom’s perceived silence on the shale gas issue – is strategic ambiguity (Eisenberg, 1984). On a strict dia- lectical analysis and evaluation, Gazprom’s arguments might seem underdeveloped, poorly justified, vague, possibly incoherent – or even not arguments at all!14 How else, however, can the company convey the message that its – no doubt environmentally hazardous – oil business is doing great and has strong prospects, while claiming that the environment is one of its great concerns? Here, the rationales for strategic ambiguity expounded by Eisenberg seem to be in play: ‘Particularly in turbulent environments, ambiguous communication is not a kind of fudging, but rather a rational method used by communicators to orient toward multiple goals’ (Eisenberg, 1984: 238–239). In particular, ‘ambiguity allows for both agreement in the abstract and the preservation of diverse viewpoints’ (p. 232). It is this ‘abstract’ – better: ambiguous or even bogus – agreement regarding environ- mental concerns which allows Gazprom to align itself with NGOs such as Greenpeace in their criticism of shale gas. Gazprom’s endangered profits are, arguably, its chief line of anti-fracking argument, but one that selectively addresses only some stakeholders (Russian government and other shareholders and investors). Yet such one-sided argu- mentation would isolate Gazprom from a broader multi-party debate and possible Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 568 Discourse & Communication 10(6) ‘discourse coalitions’ (Cotton et al., 2014). To prevent that, Gazprom takes up another line of counter-argumentation – that related to the environment – which thus expands the broader disagreement space into the direction previously called out by organisations such as Greenpeace. By no means, however, does it mean that the Russian company can be seen as creating one collective party – or tag-team (Canary et al., 1987) – with European anti-fracking activists. Their arguments and commitments are clearly distinct – in other words, they build a different case against fracking (see Lewíski, 2013a). To sum up, without offering a full-fledged dialectical and polylogical evaluation of Gazprom’s arguments, we can see that these two perspectives would very likely focus on different elements and yield different results. Discussion In this contribution I have closely analysed one contribution to the larger debate over shale gas production in Europe in order to reflect on the argumentative dynamics of multi-party public controversies. I started by considering the value of two-sided recon- struction – a form of logical abstraction laying out the arguments pro et contra a given disputable action (such as drilling for shale gas). I argued that this form of reconstruc- tion, predominant in today’s argumentation theory influenced by dialectical assumptions (see Jacquette, 2007; Van Eemeren et al., 2014), is no doubt useful for any rational delib- erator as it gives an overview of what reasons are relevant if we are to decide on the balance of considerations. All the same, dyadic reconstructions in many real-life debates remain an abstraction. If argumentative discourse analysts have any claim to rendering the expansion of actual disagreements between existing parties, then they should seriously consider polylogical complications. These complications, as I have shown in discussing how Gazprom and Greenpeace are both against fracking but also against each other, are real concerns of public arguers. Some concepts of stakeholder theory might be of help here. Stakeholder analysis is one way of contextualising polylogue, which applies well to corporate and organisational argumentation. It lets us better understand why and how arguers produce discourse which does not fit simple dialectical idealisations. They do so because they are arguing their case against an inconsistent set of actual or potential opponents. In other words, they are simultaneously engaged in expanding the disagreement space in different directions, against different parties and their distinct positions and cases. This calls for employing forms of argumentation that are both strategic and, hopefully, reasonable – but in a sense different from reasonable strategic manoeuvring in a dyadic dialectical contest (Van Eemeren, 2010). One such form briefly discussed is strategic ambiguity, which, while being ostensibly fallacious on dialectical grounds, lets a party to a poly- logue build some basis for agreement with other parties, without antagonising them by going into contestable details. These results cast new light on the way we may understand the public debate, or con- troversy, over shale gas production and fracking activities in Europe and elsewhere. They also directly address the inherent tensions in approaching this controversy, affecting both the empirical results and normative claims. Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 569 According to Mazur (2016), ‘the fracking controversy is among those reaching high visibility quickly’ (p. 208). A telling sign of this rapidly expanding controversy is the growing number of ‘competing discourses and communication events’ (Buttny, 2015: 425) surrounding shale gas exploitation. This engenders a sense of ‘cacophony of voices and interests and conflicting assessments’ (Buttny, 2015: 426), a sense which impedes clear understanding and adequate decision-making. In a similar context of a controversy over chemical weapons disposal siting, Futrell identifies an ‘information haze’ defined as ‘a condition in which there exist conflicting, contradictory, multi-party, multidirec- tional communications that fail to clarify the risks associated with a project, thus render- ing lay interpretations of a situation increasingly vague and difficult’ (Futrell, 2003: 365). As a result, participants to the debate, its analysts and ‘the general public’ may get bogged down in the complex network of players, positions and places defining the debate (Aakhus and Lewíski, 2016), and lose track of the possible reasonable arguments, defensible standpoints and lasting solutions. This understandably generates pessimistic assessments. The sense of urgency associ- ated with fracking calls for simple communicative tactics. Its critics should engage in ‘the frequent repetition of simple images that convey a sense of hazard, or at least a sense of uncertainty’ (Mazur, 2016: 221). Its proponents may by contrast be best off simply ‘minimizing attention to the controversy’ (Mazur, 2016: 221). Another ‘less-than-ideal’ response to the fracking controversy is to give up on the power of argumentative dis- course altogether and operate on the level of simplified heuristics and ‘top of the head’ associations which invoke positive or negative ‘affective images’ of fracking activities (Boudet et al., 2014). These tactics, while arguably efficient, simplify the complexity of the disputed issue and the disagreement space surrounding it by sustaining the often inadequate dyadic support/opposition frame. (One cannot deny, however, that these are crucial factors to take into account in any realistic assessment of and engagement in a complex public debate.) A somewhat more optimistic view would be to engage in more fine-grained argumen- tative discourse analysis – something I have attempted in this article. This kind of under- taking is in line with a strong normative tendency to acknowledge, understand and engage various players, positions and places in controversies over climate change and energy production, including shale gas (Aakhus and Lewíski, 2016). Authors of a recent review of the scholarship on climate change communication call for a model of commu- nication ‘that promotes the idea of engagement and critical, inclusive dialogue’ (Pearce et al., 2015: 614) across ‘more open and diversely creative discursive spaces’ (p. 620). This dialogue includes a diverse range of actors, audiences and stakeholders, thus engag- ing ‘the wide spectrum of voices and views in the climate change debate’ which research- ers ‘have begun to study’ (Pearce et al., 2015: 617). My research contributes precisely to this wider research effort by proposing a clear argumentative analysis of diverse voices in the shale gas debate in Europe. Despite its focus on but one communicative event in the larger debate and the limitations of qualitative discourse-analytic methodology grounded in argumentation theory, it is consistent with some larger quantitative results. It allows us to clearly identify simple dichotomies entrenched in our thinking about public debates over issues such as shale gas production or Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 570 Discourse & Communication 10(6) climate change. We seem to be facing the dilemma of either clear pro-et-contra binary thinking or multi-party and multi-position discursive cacophony and information haze. As this study shows, close analysis of the multi-party dialogue – a stakeholder polylogue – with its unique discursive features can overcome the perils of simplified binary understand- ings without losing its tight grip on the multiple positions defended and the argumentative cases made by different parties to the debate. In this way, it allows the identification of the discursive sources of mistakes, such as putting environmental anti-fracking activists (Greenpeace) in one bed with conventional gas producers (Gazprom). Overall, it lets us better understand the complexities of argumentative discourse over shale gas production. Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author received financial support from an exploratory grant for international projects, awarded by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, entitled Practical argumentation in the European energy and cli- mate debates: Values, argumentative strategies, and discursive representations across Europe. Notes 1. Noticeably, doubts on the issue are often ‘administratively’ subsumed under the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ position. In contexts where the precautionary principle operates, doubts count as arguments for the ‘no’ position (‘Unless we’re a 100% sure, we can’t do it’ – the burden of proof is on the proponents of a policy). By contrast, whenever the benefit of the doubt is applied, doubts are interpreted in favour of the considered course of action (‘We’ll do it, unless you can prove it’s wrong’ – the burden of proof is on the opponents of a policy). 2. See: https://www.tno.nl/en/about-tno/mission-and-strategy/. 3. See: https://www.argumentenfabriek.nl/en. 4. Source: https://www.tno.nl/media/5761/argument_map_shale_gas_europe-s.pdf. See: https://www.tno.nl/en/focus-area/energy/geo-energy/efficient-attainment-of-geo-energy/gas- shales-in-focus/. Published with written permission from the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). 5. It has long been recognised that in case of risky new technologies, including fracking, a frequent response would be ‘Yes, I support them as long as they are developed Not In My Back Yard’ (e.g. Cotton, 2013; Futrell, 2003). 6. See Lewíski (2010) for the notions of ‘collective antagonist’ and protagonist. 7. Source: http://www.gazprom.com/about/. 8. Most notably, the USA has stopped importing gas and instead relies on its relatively cheap shale gas supplies. Large quantities of liquefied natural gas originally destined for the USA reach other markets (notably, Europe and Asia), lowering gas prices and endangering Gazprom’s dominant market position (Riley, 2013). 9. Romanian President Traian Basescu has claimed, ‘No question, Gazprom benefits from Romania not exploiting gas in the Black Sea or shale gas, because we might became an exporter and can supply gas to a part of Gazprom current market’. He further argued, ‘[W]e have no Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 571 Gazprom protests and we do not have protests because Lukoil has a concession in the Black Sea; nothing that is Russian is touched, wherever Americans are there are protests’, speaking about opposition to US Chevron’s explorative drilling of shale gas in Romania (source: http:// www.naturalgaseurope.com/traian-basescu-gazprom-romania-black-sea-shale-gas). 10. I have followed reconstruction, diagramming and numbering conventions proposed in Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992: ch. 7), Van Eemeren et al. (1993) and Snoeck Henkemans (1992). 11. Importantly, ‘[s]takeholders are identified by their interests in the corporation, whether the corporation has any corresponding functional interest in them’ (Donaldson and Preston, 1995: 67, emphasis in original). 12. Various other typologies of stakeholders have been proposed – for example, Friedman and Miles (2002); Mitchell et al. (1997). 13. There is an ongoing discussion over whether only firms (corporations) or also other organi- sations such as NGOs are amenable to a stakeholder approach. Some explicitly limit their analyses to firms (Donaldson and Preston, 1995), while others present convincing analyses of stakeholder engagement by NGOs such as Greenpeace (Friedman and Miles, 2002). 14. In the pragma-dialectical model of a critical discussion strategic ambiguities would amount to fallacies as violations of rule 10: ‘A party must not use formulations that are insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous […]’ (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992: ch. 18). References Aakhus M and Lewíski M (2016) Advancing polylogical analysis of large-scale argumentation: Disagreement management in the fracking controversy. Argumentation. Epub ahead of print 1 June. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-016-9403-9. Bennett WL and Segerberg A (2012) The logic of connective action. Information, Communication & Society 15(5): 739–768. 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Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/gazprom-vs- greenpeace-arctic-30/blog/47205/ Appendix 1 Figure 5. ‘Argument Map: Shale gas production in EU member states’. Source: https://www.tno.nl/media/5761/argument_map_shale_gas_europe-s.pdf Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016 Lewiński 575 Author biography Marcin Lewiński is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and a researcher at the ArgLab, Nova Institute of Philosophy, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. After receiving his PhD from the University of Amsterdam (2010), he has been investigating general problems of argumentation theory (conditions for rational discussions, fallacies) and argumenta- tive discourse in various forms of public debate. He focuses on argumentative polylogues – discussions where multiple competing positions are debated by a number of parties. Marcin analyses, in particular, discourse over climate change and energy policies, as well as online political discussions. Downloaded from dcm.sagepub.com by guest on November 21, 2016