Introduction to policy debates

Policy Debates – Introduction

VICTOR FINKEL: Most debates are policy debates. Policy debates require teams to propose or oppose a change to the way that the world works now – what we will call the ‘status quo’. Here are some examples of policy debate motions:

1. That the government should ban smoking (a change to a status quo in which smoking is legal).

2. That the West should lift all economic sanctions on North Korea (a change to a status quo in which economic sanctions are imposed on North Korea).

3. That prostitution should be legalised (a change to the status quo in countries in which prostitution is banned).

The other type of debate is an empirical debate. Empirical debates are not about what we should do, but about evaluating the truth of a particular statement. Motions like ‘That Facebook is bad for society’ or ‘That the Arab Spring was a failure’ aren’t asking us to debate a change to the way world works, but rather asking us to debate whether the statement is true or false. Is Facebook bad or good? Was the Arab Spring a failure or success? These topics are less common and we won’t focus on them in this course.

Policy debates can seem scary. They require you to formulate and defend a policy response to a particular problem that you might know very little about. What we’ll do in this lesson is explain a simple technique to approaching these debates – the ‘problem-solution approach’.

The problem-solution approach is pretty simple. There are two steps in approaching a policy debate: first, identify the problem or problems with the status quo; and (2) identify the best possible solution to these problems. Do this well and you’ll win most debates. We’re going to spend the rest of this lesson exploring these two steps.

Introduction to policy debates

Identifying the Problem

VICTOR FINKEL: As I mentioned in the previous video, the first step in approaching a policy debate is to identify the problem or problems with the status quo, in other words, the problem with the way the world works now.

Why do you need to do this? Well, policy debates are usually decided based on which team does the best job at dealing with a problem in society. And before you can deal with a problem, you have to understand what that problem is. When I used to debate, identifying the problem was usually the first thing my team did during preparation time, whether we were on the Proposition or the Opposition side.

There are two steps to identifying the problem with the status quo: first, working out what the status quo is and second, working out what the problem or problems are with that status quo.

Let’s take the example of a debate about banning smoking. What is the status quo? Well, that depends on which country you are in. But let’s assume for a moment that you are in a country in which smoking is legal, as is implied by the motion. What are the problems with a status quo in which smoking is legal? Pause the video for a moment and think about it.

There are a number of different problems with a status quo in which smoking is legal. Smokers get addicted to cigarettes and often end up dying of lung cancer. Non-smokers may be harmed by inhaling cigarette smoke. Society incurs significant health costs in caring for smokers. And in many countries, smokers are more likely to be the poorest members of society, which means that some of the most disadvantaged people face most of the harmful consequences of smoking.

Let’s work through another couple of examples. Say you have the motion ‘That hate speech should be banned’. Hate speech is speech that insults or offends members of certain groups, such as ethnic or religious minorities – for example, neo-Nazis insulting Jews. If the status quo is that speech of this kind is allowed, what are some of the problems with that status quo? Well, problems might include that hate speech causes significant emotional harm to members of a vulnerable group or that hate speech provokes people to act violently against those groups.

Now, let’s look at a more difficult example. Say you have the motion ‘That the United States should end all drone strikes’. Well, for those of you that don’t know what drones are, they are aerial vehicles controlled remotely which can be used to launch missiles at targets on the ground. The status quo is that the United States has used drones to attack terrorist targets in countries like Pakistan and Yemen. What are the problems with that status quo? They might include that drones are bad at distinguishing between terrorists and innocent civilians and that the use of drones angers local populations and leads to revenge attacks.

If you are having trouble identifying the problems with the status quo, remember to always ask: ‘Why are we even having this debate?’. ‘What are the social issues that have prompted this motion?’

Now let’s try an exercise together.