1 / 26 Political Engagement Through Tools for Argumentation Dan Cartwright and Katie Atkinson Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, UK Presentation to COMMA 2008

2 / 26 Overview Background of e-Democracy and current trends Overview of Parmenides Tools to support and extend Parmenides Discussion of future work and concluding remarks

3 / 26 e-Democracy Focuses on the use of computing technologies in enhancing democratic processes Availability of computers & internet access Mobilisation of electorate Driven by: Exploitation of technology

4 / 26 e-Consultation systems (Macintosh et al., 2006) Current Trends Highland Youth Voice Ur’say Support and encourage political participation of young people in Scotland Online policy-debating forum Online voting system Single-themed discussion forum Debate is analysed and report produced

5 / 26 Current Trends e-Petitions allow users to create and “sign” petitions over the internet Example below based on fox hunting UK government introduced an e-Petitions website in 2004

6 / 26 e-Petitions suffer from similar problems to paper- based counterparts We do not know which part(s) of the petition the signatory agrees or disagrees with Signatories have to agree with “all or nothing” Current Trends

7 / 26 Current Trends Structured tools Tools for argument visualisation Example: Araucaria (Reed & Rowe, 2003) Tools for decision support Example: Zeno (Gordon & Karacapilidis, 1997) Issues with ease of use by laypersons Visualise textual arguments

8 / 26 Parmenides – Overview An online discussion forum (K. Atkinson et al., 2004) Intended as an e-Democracy application Government presents policy proposals to public together with a justification Users submit their critique of the proposal Based on an argument scheme for reasoning about action selection and associated set of critical questions Aims to provide structure to debate whilst remaining easy to use

9 / 26 Parmenides – Argument Scheme Parmenides is based on an argument scheme for persuasive argument about action selection AS1 argument scheme: “ In the current circumstances R, we should perform action A, which will result in new circumstances S, which will realise goal G, which will promote some value V ” Argument schemes represent stereotypical patterns of reasoning

10 / 26 Parmenides – Critical Questions Challenge the presumptions in instantiations of the argument scheme Used to determine which parts of the initial position the user disagrees with Examples: Are the circumstances as described? Does the goal promote the value?

11 / 26 Parmenides – Latest Developments Parmenides was first implemented to model the Iraq War Debate Since extended to model further debates, such as the Fox Hunting Debate Tools to analyse debate data Tools for demographic profiling Tools for dynamic debate creation

12 / 26 Parmenides – Critique The Critique section of the website allows the user to critique each element of the initial position Achieved by systematically considering Critical Questions User is not aware that they are using critical questions or being lead through a particular path: they can respond with “yes/no” answers Underlying structure hidden from user to prevent confusion

13 / 26 Parmenides – Critique (2) The above is an instantiation of a Critical Question associated with the argument scheme This CQ asks whether the user believes that the Circumstances stated in the initial position are true

14 / 26 Parmenides – Alternative Position Users can submit an alternative position to the debate User does this by instantiating an instance of the AS1 argument scheme Circumstances: The ban is not enforced correctly Action: Improve policing of the ban Goals: Prevent public contravention of the ban Values: Animal welfare, Law enforcement Example alternative position from the fox hunting debate:

15 / 26 Parmenides – Alternative Position (2) The user must choose elements of their position from a drop-down menu Allows easy analysis of results and prevents abuse However, it does restrict users’ expressiveness To overcome this: some free text input

16 / 26 Parmenides Java Application (1) Consists of 2 tools Critique statistics tool Displays the results in the form of an Argument Framework, showing arguments and attacks between them Analyses user critiques of the argument’s initial position Alternative position analysis tool Displays results as a Value-based Argument Framework Analyses alternative positions submitted by users

17 / 26 Critique statistics tool Parmenides Java Application (2)

18 / 26 Critique Statistics Analysis Each statement is broken down into its constituent elements Each branch consists of a statement and a counterstatement The numbers above each node represent the number of users who agree with the element

19 / 26 Critique Statistics Analysis Textual summary is also available Agreement shown as percentages

20 / 26 Parmenides Java Application (3) Second tool: Alternative position analysis tool Displays a Value-based Argumentation Framework (Bench- Capon, 2003) From this, we can determine justifiable arguments VAFs are an extension to Dung’s AFs, in which we represent the social values promoted by each argument Determine which attacks succeed by applying a preference ordering over the values

21 / 26 Parmenides Java Application (4) Alternative position analysis tool

22 / 26 Parmenides Debate Creator Easy to add new debates Little technical knowledge required Consistent appearance System tested with a small number of new debates e.g. Speed Camera Debate, Fox Hunting Debate

23 / 26 Parmenides Profiler Allows demographic profiling of users Users can submit information about themselves Users optionally log into profiler before participating in debate Profiler Debate

24 / 26 Issues Analysis of demographic profile data Enhance free-text input and analysis Security Manipulation of results

25 / 26 Conclusion and Future Work Implement other Argument Schemes in Parmenides Field trials Parmenides aims to provide a balance between structure and ease of use We have described Parmenides and a number of tools to enhance the original system Future work:

26 / 26 Thankyou for your attention The Parmenides system can be used at For further information on the topics discussed: Questions?