---
title: "A Versatile Framework for Formula-Based Enforcement and Synthesis in Abstract Argumentation"
authors:
  - "Andreas Niskanen"
  - "Jean-Guy Mailly"
  - "Yannis Dimopoulos"
  - "Pavlos Moraitis"
doi: "10.24963/ijcai.2026/442"
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/442"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/0442.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 2026
pages: "3970-3978"
track: "Main Track"
keywords:
  - "Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Argumentation"
---

# A Versatile Framework for Formula-Based Enforcement and Synthesis in Abstract Argumentation

Andreas Niskanen, Jean-Guy Mailly, Yannis Dimopoulos, Pavlos Moraitis

*Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 3970-3978. DOI: [10.24963/ijcai.2026/442](https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/442)

## Abstract

Argumentation dynamics provides techniques for revising argumentation theories in real-world domains (e.g., an autonomous medical diagnostic agent). Within this context, enforcement in abstract argumentation has become a prominent topic. Enforcement aims to modify an argumentation framework to satisfy given acceptability conditions while minimizing change from the original framework. Motivated by the need to address both syntactic and semantic notions of change, we propose formula-based enforcement, a generic framework that strictly generalizes existing approaches, by additionally covering cases they cannot handle, including semantic change. We analyze its complexity under central argumentation semantics, obtaining results from NP-completeness to completeness for the third level of the polynomial hierarchy. For second-level complete variants, we present an exact procedure based on MaxSAT solving and counterexample-guided abstraction refinement (CEGAR), and evaluate it empirically.