Organizing / Arguing: For Nuclear Power in the Name of the Environment

Braiding organization theory and argumentation theory, I unfold in this article how argumentation contributes to organizational sense-making and how organizations act as social loci for the production, diffusion and development of arguments. A Swedish association dedicated to the defense and promotion of nuclear power, Miljövänner För Kärnkraft (approximately Environmentalists For Nuclear Power) serves as a case study. I describe the association’s argumentative activity with a particular focus on its argument that “nuclear power is environment friendly as it produces no greenhouse gases emissions”. The manner in which the association contextualizes this key argument illustrates the inter-relationships there exist between organizing and arguing. The two are each other’s conditions of possibility and I therefore argue for a symmetric understanding of the argumentative character of organizing and the organized character of argumentation.