[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

Linkage topic

I'm still shooting from the hip on this one (sorry Mancuso), but it seems
like the linkage/conditional aid/trade angle might be one of the best
hopes for stable neg ground.  Early reports from the front indicate that
it is grounded in the literature as a legitimate policy option (Wells;
Nexon), and that there is a lot of opposition to it from multiple
quarters (Nexon).

I keep thinking back to Broda-Bahm's post of a few days ago re: the
pedagogical importance of +stable+ neg ground for novices.  A topic that
required a linkage policy would certainly seem to provide such ground,
e.g. 

* U.S. human rights imperialism DA / Demo Promo Bad DA
* U.S.-ASEAN/European/Chinese relations DA, 
* bizcon DA, 

to name a few.

While well-taken, Nexon's fear that debates would become repetitive
doesn't strike me as a real problem.

First, the really *bad* repetitiveness occurs when negs chronically run
Clinton against "change" topics that shed any directional generics.
Second, IMHO, some of the best negative debating in recent years came on
the 1989-90 fossil fuel topic, which embedded links to a quality neg
generic (OOPS) in the phrasing of the resolution (aff must "substantially
reduce fossil fuel consumption").  The link debates on OOPS got very
sophisticated, and affs were forced to invent clever ways of trying to
escape the link while pushing the T envelope (Hi there, Michigan!)  It was
refreshing to coach novices on that topic because they could always start
their negative strategizing from a stabe premise (i.e. aff would have to
reduce fossil fuel consumption).

Further, the linkage phrasing on this year's topic might provide a good
way to satisfy Heider's concerns about steering the debate away from
military issues and toward human rights concerns.  Check this out: clever
affs could pretty easily dodge the HR issues and foreground security
advantages if the topic were worded loosely, e.g. "adopt a human rights
policy."  Example: ship tanks to topic country X.  On T, aff team defends
plan as a "human rights policy," saying such tanks are necessary to stop
HR abuses by internal rebel groups.  On case, aff team claims massive
security advantages, saying shipment of tanks is necessary to deter
foreign aggressors.  Sure, the neg could still try to run the HR-based DAs
described above, but aff would have good wiggle room to say "our policy
isn't perceived as a HR-based; it's primary justification is to deter
war."  With this link-minimizer available, and with the big security
advantage on its side of the ledger, seems to me that affs would win most
of these rounds.

If the aff were forced to defend a similar policy under a linkage
framework, however, the situation becomes much rosier for the neg.  Plan:
Ship tanks to topic country X, but condition shipment on the proviso that
country X make significant human rights improvements.  Aff could still
claim a big security adv stemming from the deterrent value of the tanks,
but look at what the neg could do:

C/P: Ship tanks unconditionally.  Not topical (doesn't do linkage).  Net
beneficial (gets the aff security adv, dodges the HR-pressure DAs).

Utilizing this c/p, the neg could steer the debate back to the stable
ground of a HR focus, and if they did a good job of winning one of the
three DAs listed at the beginning of this post (and wrapping up the c/p
debate tidily), they would have a good shot to win.

Yours in Spewidarity,

Gordon Mitchell,
University of Pittsburgh
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page