Americas’ conviction: arguing democracy in the affective episteme

We nominate conviction as a shared research problematic for argumentation scholarship in the Americas. Conviction has long been presumed as a constitutive feature of argumentation theory. Yet, important questions pertaining to the nature of conviction, how convictions are acquired, and conviction’s role in democratic governance have not received sustained attention. Using US President Joseph Biden’s address at the 2022 Summit of the Americas as a touchstone, we identify four distinct modalities of conviction–juridical, propositional, identitarian, and affective–which advocates articulate to advance strategic goals. Given the affective modality has received less attention from argumentation theorists, and the ever-increasing role affect plays in contemporary politics, we focus on explicating the affective modality and how it influences democratic governance and political activism in the Americas.