Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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In The Netherlands, the objection procedure (or ‘bezwaarprocedure’) is considered one of the top-10 bottlenecks in public administration. Hence, four municipalities in the Leiden area redesigned...Show moreIn The Netherlands, the objection procedure (or ‘bezwaarprocedure’) is considered one of the top-10 bottlenecks in public administration. Hence, four municipalities in the Leiden area redesigned their objection procedure. The new way of working is based on mediation skills. Yet, it is unclear what these mediation skills signify in this context. And how are they applied by the objection committee (known as mediation style)? Likewise, how do the conflicting parties react to this new way of working (known as conflict style)? And, last but not least – what causes all these styles? In order to answer these questions, qualitative data from 12 hearings is presented in a linguistic corpus. Excerpts are taken out and assessed to offer a comprehensive answer. The results were as follows. Generally, objectors maintained a competing, defensive style; authority representatives retreated to the law, failing to make their contributions relevant for the objector; interested third parties were resentful; and the committee had a facilitative mediation style – for the benefit of the conflicting parties. One probable cause of these conflict styles is the existence of four types of asymmetry between the objector and the remaining parties. Furthermore, it is possible that mental association with contexts of fighting is a cause of said conflict styles. The consequence of these styles was that the objector often put in extra effort, whereas the authority representative took a step backwards in effort. As a small-scale study, this papers offers incentives for larger studies into the government-citizen relationship; into power in negotiation; and into face negotiation theory.Show less
