IRMTRAUD N. GALLHOFER is Senior Researcher at the Sociometric Research Foundation in Amsterdam and has been engaged for more than 20 years in research on political decision-making and text analysis./e Her articles have been published in a variety of European political science and psychology journals.WILLEM E. SARIS is Professor of Statistics and Methods at the University of Amsterdam./e In addition to his work on structural equation modeling and the improvement of measurement procedures, he has published several papers on decision making with Irmtraud Gallhofer.

• Preface Introduction A Qualitative Analysis of the Argumentation of Individual Participants in Decision-Making Processes Argumentation in the Literature Argumentation from the Perspective of Decision Theory Detection of Argumentations from Documents War with Serbia or Not: The Initiation of World War I The Initiation of World War II The World at the Brink of a Nuclear War: October 1962 To Take Measures against Indonesia or Not, the Netherlands in the Autumn of 1948 Summary of Part I A Quantitative Study of Arguments The Decision Rules Are Universal The Quality of the Arguments Explanation of the Individual Decision-Makers' Argumentations Factors in the Specification of Strategies Factors in the Specification of Outcomes Factors in the Use of Argumentation Rules Summary of Part II Appendix 1: Guidelines for the Construction of Decision Trees Appendix 2: Assessing Coding Reliability Appendix 3: Detection of Decision Rules from Interviews References Subject Index Name Index