In Defense of International Fiat

This article was originally published in the April 2012 edition of the Rostrum.

As this issue’s Rostrum celebrates global awareness, no question in debate seems more pertinent to the cause than the legitimacy of international fiat. Counterplans that utilize global actors have always been a point of contention. Recently, however, there seems to be a shifting in the tectonic plates of the debate community. The disallowance of international counterplans appears to be at risk of becoming a norm. There are a few critical arguments that negatives can take advantage of when answering theoretical objections (and defending the side of truth and justice).

Global Education

The first and most intuitive reason to allow for international counterplans is that they promote research and articulateness on a host of global issues. A bird’s eye view of comparative country studies allows for a more comprehensive understanding of policymaking in an interconnected world. An approach that assumes the perspective of a single individual or country unnecessarily oversimplifies the collective nature of decisionmaking.1 Although relations and foreign politics disadvantages open the door for these discussions, they do not satisfy the search for the best policy option. Domestic agent counterplans have become fairly stale—judges hear the executive order and courts counterplans ad nauseam. By contrast, international fiat provides in-depth exposure to the workings of global bodies, from the Chinese plenum to the UN Security Council to the WTO arbitration panel. For those who believe that domestic education should be prioritized first, international counterplans are still the best way to achieve this education. International fiat also tests the affirmative’s claim that action by the United States federal government is necessary.

Testing the U.S. Key Warrant

As Ross Smith pointed out in the Debaters’ Research Guide, there are three types of net benefits to international counterplans. The first is a simple disadvantage to the plan that the counterplan avoids. The second strategy argues the counterplan solves better than the plan and introduces a disadvantage to the permutation (e.g. Japan solves better than the U.S. and both acting together creates confusion). The third is through an advantage to the counterplan that the affirmative does not capture—for example a Chinese counterplan with the argument that Chinese hegemony is good.2 In all three, an affirmative with a solid U.S. key warrant could defeat the counterplan, regardless of the actor. However, the net benefit that consists of the advantage to the counterplan is the hardest to defend. This is because counterplan does not test the affirmative; it instead creates an external reason why another country should do the plan. This falls prey to the same criticisms of the consultation and conditions counterplans, where focus is shifted away from the affirmative plan to the external plank. That said, the very reason these net benefits are arbitrary and tenuous is the same reason that negatives should be allowed to read international counterplans to begin with! Having the negative read a counterplan that says Chinese action is needed because Chinese hegemony is good is no worse than having an affirmative say U.S. action is needed because U.S. hegemony is good. Neither debate the plan mechanism and instead shift focus to an arbitrary advantage. Lazy affirmatives can just tack on a hegemony or soft power advantage to artificially create a U.S. key warrant. For example, on this year’s space topic, a team might read that space based solar power (SBSP) is critical to solving for energy shortages. They have established a reason that the mechanism is critical that can be leveraged against a counterplan that does not do SBSP. They then read an advantage that claims US technological leadership sustains hegemony. The affirmative may have a reason why U.S. action is needed, but they do not have an argument for why it is needed in space based solar power. Only a counterplan that has another country do SBSP and an advantage counterplan that solves hegemony could test whether the U.S. is truly needed to accomplish both advantages. In running international counterplans, negatives will have to be weary of two primary theoretical objections. The first is one that many debaters are likely familiar with from debating the states counterplan.

Jurisdiction

This argument claims that the judge must inhabit a position of a policymaker, paralleled to a similar real world position. The affirmative argues that no real policymaker chooses between pursuing policies in different countries. That is not necessarily true. National leaders often consider which country is best situated to deploy troops to postconflict settings or pressure rogue nations into conforming before committing to a course of action domestically.3,4 The World Bank takes into account which countries are best able to support certain development programs, and then uses its economic leverage to get nations to take the concrete action it proposed.5 Even assuming these real world policymaking examples did not exist, if the negative wins that international education is important, the judge could adopt a position such as an advocate or activist who is choosing what arena would best support their goals.

Limits

Finally, the negative must be ready to respond to the claim that there are simply too many actors that they could fiat. There are 196 countries and the count of international organizations depends on how they are defined. Affirmatives will argue that it is unfair that they be expected to have done research on all of them. To counter, negative teams may be best served in offering a more limited interpretation of who they should be allowed to fiat (e.g. only topic countries). However, there are also options for those who prefer not to compromise. Negatives can argue that they are functionally limited by the literature base needed to support the solvency mechanism of the counterplan and the net benefits (for example, it is likely difficult to find that Romania should pave the way on SBSP development). The less specific the evidence the negative has, the less likely the counterplan solves the affirmative. Either way, affirmatives with a strong reason why the U.S. is needed can leverage that against any international counterplan. Policy Debate is one of the most educational activities in which students can engage. In part, this stems from quality research and in part, from its constant evolution through the round-to-round renegotiations of the rules that govern it. The international fiat debate remains at the nexus of both.

Varsha Ramakrishnan is head coach at the University School of Nashville and a former debater at Michigan State University.

End Notes

1 Rosati, Jerel A. "A Cognitive Approach to the Study of Foreign Policy." Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in the Second Generation. (1995): 60-61. Print.

2 Smith, Ross. "The International Counterplan: A Survey of the Issues." Debater's Research Guide. 20. (1998): n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. .

3 United Nations. Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Handbook on United Nations Multidimensional Peacekeeping Operations. New York: UN, 2003. Web. .

4 Downs, Erica S., and Suzanne Maloney. "Getting China to Sanction Iran." Foreign Affairs. 90.2 (2011): n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. .

5 Magnussen, Roger S. "Non-communicable diseases and global health governance: enhancing global processes to improve health development." Globalization and Health. 3.2 (2007): n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. .