Analysis of data

The methods in textual research, as Horsti states (2005, 48), develop in relation to the re-search data and the questions one asks from the data. This is also valid in my rere-search. In ad-dition, choosing methods and the way to use them in analysis has not been straightforward.

The analysis of data with the two methods consists of several steps or phases that are also partly overlapping. During the analysis I concentrated on two main issues when reading the

statements; 1) what kind of problem the statements construct out of climate change, and 2) what kind of argumentation the statements contain about responsibility in climate politics.

Roughly speaking, the analysis and interpretation can be described in three phases.

Phase 1: preliminary observation. First, I paid attention to the way climate change is discussed by the states in general; how climate change is framed as a problem. The frames in this research, as with Väliverronen (1996, 111), are the result of concrete empirical research, not the basis of it. As I started to be familiar with the research material, I began to distinguish roughly two ways of speaking about climate change. Framing thus encompasses reading the statements as a whole. In practice, framing meant asking what are the main issues or perspec-tives related to climate change that differ in the statements. More precisely, I compared the ways to speak about climate change in the statements for the purpose of my research problem.

The research problem is thus answered partly with the research questions and partly with the other aspects of the statements, and the most prevalent and important features of these are in-cluded in the frames to shape more generalised ideas about climate change as a problem. The frames hold shared ways to speak of, understand, construct and justify the problem. However, the frames can also contain different claims about the distribution of responsibility.

Phase 2: systematic use of analytical framework. Secondly, in order to answer the re-search questions I re-searched argumentation concerning responsibility in climate politics with the help of analytical framework (Figure 4.). I followed the idea of Tuulentie (2001, 47) and used the rhetoric of Perelman as a “tool box” for the concrete analysis of my research data.

The claims concerning the content and distribution of responsibility answered my first re-search question. There were rarely claims “ready” in the statements; instead forming them was largely about interpretation. For the second and third research question I considered what kinds of premises underlie these claims and what kind of justifications support them. The premises and the techniques of argumentation are salient in how arguments are presented as credible, but as framing tools (see 4.3.2) they also construct climate change as a problem; they thus relate to both methods. I further combined individual premises and techniques of argu-mentation to broader entities and grouped these claims (and thus states) by their content into coalitions. In total, I formed several different claims but accepted only the most common and interesting of them as results. To put it simple, when searching and forming argumentation I read the statements with these ideas in mind: who should take responsibility according to the statements, what measures responsibility means, what is the main concerns within statements for the sake of which measures are demanded, and how the statements justify these issues, how they rationalise and what kind of reasons they give to support their causes.

Figure 4. represents the analytical framework which I used when reading and analysing the research data. This figure is inspired by a figure presented by Perimäki (2001, 5) in her study about the actors and arguments in the Finnish climate politics (see also Best 1987, 102 for a similar type of figure to Perimäki’s). I chose to construct this kind of figure because it in-cludes issues that are important when considering argumentation; it connects the social con-text or rhetorical situation (see Kakkuri-Knuuttila 1998) with the aspects of argumentation as understood by Perelman. It is also helpful in systematic analysing of data as well as being useful in presenting the results in a visual way making them thus easier to understand. The forum, the speaker, and the audience refer to the social context of the statements, the rhetori-cal situation. The speaker and the audience also relate to the first aspect of Perelman’s theory, the relationship to audience. The premises are the second aspect in the theory of Perelman.

They can be either reality based; premises that relate to reality, or preference based; premises that relate to preference or preferable. Justification refers to the third aspect of Perelman’s theory, the techniques of argumentation, which are divided into associative (quasi-logical ar-guments, arguments that are based on the structure of reality, and arguments which establish the structure of reality) and dissociative techniques. The conclusion refers to the claim.

FIGURE 4. Analytical framework: social context and argumentation.

SPEAKER AUDIENCE

The research data consists of 120 political statements made by ministers and heads of delega-tion in the high-level segment of the Montreal Climate Conference in 2005. The forum of the rhetorical situation is thus Montreal Climate Conference held 28.11.-9.12.2005, and the spea-kers of the rhetorical situation are the ministers and heads of delegations representing the sta-tes. The Conference contained four meetings: 11^th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, 1^st Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol as well as 23^rd session of subsidiary bodies, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. There were about 9500 participants in total in the sessions of which 2800 were members of official delegations, 5800 representatives of observer organisations and 800 reporters (Berghäll 2005, 5). This is the concrete audience of the rhetorical situation. Howe-ver, the concept of audience is not restricted only to the audience in attendance, but the au-dience can be global through media. There were 189 parties to the UNFCCC and 157 parties to the Kyoto Protocol at the time of the Montreal Climate Conference and these meetings had a joint high-level segment (Berghäll, 2005, 5). The relationship to an audience is considered only from the point of view of states. For me, the most interesting aspects in this respect are the interrelationship of statements and the use of “we –rhetoric”. The interrelationship of statements refers to the statements being directed towards other states; the statements address states by presenting or responding to claims. The social context discussed earlier also relates to this; knowing the historical and social context as well as the actors and their positions is important. The arguments in the statements can thus be considered as a debate even if they are not presented in that kind of form. Because of the large number of statements I did not aspire at a very detailed analysis of statements in their entirety. For example, the concrete speaker itself and how she/he aims at making herself/himself credible is not discussed. However, it is important to notice when the speaker aims at convincing the audience of the relevance and responsibility of the state. It is also important to consider what is not said in the statements, what is passed without a mention. As Gill and Whedbee (1997, 160) point out referring to Burke’s (1966) and Derrida’s (1982) ideas, that “every text, in focusing on some things, in making some things present to an audience, at one and the same time obscures something else”.

Phase 3: combining the results and interpretation. On the third phase I aimed at form-ing a coherent way to represent the results as a whole. This also included verifyform-ing my ideas and thus returning to the research data to see whether the data still supports the results. Inter-pretation has been carried along in all three phases, but in this third phase interInter-pretation essen-tially relates to the aspects of environmental justice within climate change.