Course: Dutch Anglo-Saxon Parliamentary Debate Institute

Workshop 1: Introduction and Practical Tips

 

Lecturer: Will Jones 

Date: 3/07/06 Monday 

1. Definitions –a. write down word for wordb. have to address the problem

2. Outlining the debate:a. Concise (no explanatory sentences – avoiding giving time to prepare answers)b. Clear

3. Make Judge/audience give a damn – give the reason, why the topic/principle/argument is important (e.g. there is only one parliament in the world having 50% of women in it and we see it as a problem). In short – illustrate by bringing impact.

4. Examples:a. Only useful, if illustrate a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPb. Try to avoid very specific examplesc. Spell out in tiny little steps, how the example is relevant to the case

5. Sarah Jones’ Rule: More often than not the debate outcome is decided by the number of mistakes made and not the content itself.

a. Debates aren’t won, they are lost6. Debating is a confidence game

a. Debating is a card trick – u flash before the judge and hope they don’t notice.7. POIs

a. Give immediately after the bell (confidence game)b. Take from the strongest opponent (confidence)c. Take early ond. Practice by taking 3 POIs in a pratice debate.e. If a POI is given by the next opposition speaker, let him stand for a minute (he cannot right

and prep his case:)f. Simple universal questions:

i. Why?ii. And what’s the causal link there?iii. Why does this follow that?

iv. Dragging/winning time: Please re-explain the last argument, I just didn’t get it (to win time, especially in case of 5 minute speeches)

8. Wording: Use appropriate accentuating language – e.g. alienation vs. dissatisfaction.9. Rhetoric Question – good, but use them in case u have a good answer for them supporting your

point of view.10. Causality – hard substance of debate.11. Principled argument – superior to a solely practical one. Argument is like a layercake – the

principle supports the practical line of reasoning making it all the more difficult to deal with.12. Fundamental goal in debating – IDENTIFYING THE BURDENS OF PROOF AND

REALIZING THEM – do it in small baby steps preferably to the point of happiness is good. If you fulfil it, you’ve won.

13.Stylea. Use contrast – if POI is overtly funny, answer in a serious tone and vice versa. Also works

upon giving a speechb. Be more light hearted upon rebuttles and then ‘sober up’ and make people listen by becoming

serious upon engaging in constructive material.

Find a place

  Principle: Normative changes – way how policy implementation changes views (e.g. legislating gay

marriages in denmark converting the clergy to favour it) Principle: Judicial Discretion – practice according to which the punishment is adjusted by the judge.

Multiple offenders get severer punishments. Principle: By allowing, the state is in fact sending out a signal, that it doesn’t condemn it. Henceforth

it is partially endorsing it. And by endorsing it, the state takes responsibility for the outcome. (Only by allowing the activity becomes possible).

Principle: Representationo Delegative representation: send someone to represent you, since they think like you thinko Deliberative representation: send someone to represent you, cause you think they are more

competent in the matters (??? – double check that) Concept of perspective: “Being committed to an inconsistency” Concept: Fringe benefits Principle: International law – deals with matters that go beyond the scope of domestic courts (e.g.

crimes against humanity, transnational business transactions, interstate issues) Strategy: Practical arguments are best tackled by attacking the logic behind them. Principle: Self interest is a fairly motivating interest. Strategy: for deeper analyses give more than 60 seconds to develop an argument.

Workshop 2: Winning from 1st Position

 

Lecturer: Will Jones 

Date: 03/07/06  

Introduction does not win you points but can sure lose the debate and take the points away. 

Definition has to address the problem. 

Lay out the structure concisely without priming the arguments with anything else than their names (avoids giving the opposition time to come up with good POIs and counterarguments). 

Don’t read out the motion – dead time and everybody knows it anyway. 

Don’t salute – the judge doesn’t give a damn, if I consider him to be an honourable gentleman. 

Winning from 1 st   prop  

1. State Your case in a straight and simple manner (be ballsy). You will be given credit for being brave.2. Set up the debate for tactical grab – leaving very little if any room for a decent extension.3. Be clear about the problem

a. Pick an obvious problem (e.g. great injustice)b. A disconcerting fact can also be taken to illustrate a problem (Swedish parliament the only

well distributed gender ratio parliament in the world and we see it as a problem).c. Problems don’t necessarily have to be practical

4. Mechanism has to be simple and clear (Shouldn’t take one more than 20 seconds to explain).5. First speech should be like a preemptive summary.6. BURDEN of PROOF –

a. Cater for all elements that have to be true in order for the claim to work.b. Prove in BABYSTEPSc. Bring it down to happiness is nice.

7. Be very clear with definitions (write them down on your flow word for word).

 

Winning from 1 st   Op  

1. Several optionsa. Accepting the framework and fundamental values of the 1st gov, and proving that the plan

doesn’t in fact solve the problem or that the detriments outweigh the benefits. Pointing out reasoning flaws.

b. Rejecting the fundamental principles of the 1st government.

Preempting the second government!

 

Workshop 3: International Relations

 

Lecturer:  Will Jones and Gavin Illsley 

Date: 04/07/06 

War and intervention

 

Proposition ’ s case  

Has to prove the motion on two premises:

Moral bases for intervention: E.g. crimes against humanity, state victimizes its members, international/regional stability, avoiding some detriment (e.g. unleashing WMD). In case the WMD scenario prove the existence of WMD  Prove that the regime is willing to use them  Conclude the necessity to intervene.

Practical bases for intervention (this is why it is going to work).

 

Opposition ’ s case  

Prove that there is no right to act / no problem to begin with. The consequences following don’t justify the action.

Intervention

 

Intervention can have several forms:

Sanctions Smart sanctions

o Freeze all overseas bank accounts (except those in swiss banks)o Block trade

o Expelling from WTO (losing access to GATT talks – multilateral customs policy negotiations).

Military interventiono Fund and train insurgencyo Invade

Aftermath? (‘Freedom is messy’ –Donald Rumsfeld) Who is going to come to power and are the preconditions to democracy

fulfilled (civil society, solid politicized middle class/exiles) Weakness or strength of the incumbent regime (insurgency)

Ethnic complications (Iraq) Resource/economical complications (Iraq) Controlling a couple of cities might do the trick

International supporto Mossad strategy (shoot the president)

Democracy

 

Line of argumentation: An individual has a fundamental right to live in a society of self determination allowing freedom of choice. Cause it is a fundamentally a good thing (since without that freedom it is impossible to live a fulfilling happy life). Henceforth democracy can be considered to be good. 

Alternatively democracy is good solely cause it tends to give rise to stable regimes enabling best possible welfare for its members. 

Proposition 

Fundamental right to be a part of self determining political community Practical line of reasoning: stable regimes

o Botswana – African state where democracy works with an harmonic economy since 1960.

 

Opposition 

Stability is a superior goodo Singapore vs. Malaysia

Preconditions for a stable democracy have to be fulfilled firsto Free presso Educated politicized middle class

o Civil society (if political organization is weak, people stick to and politicians appeal to the simplest cleavages in the society such as race, social status etc.)

 

Other factors to consider:

Patron cliantage(???) – give aid money to supporters (examples from numerous African states, where the regimes rely on this phenomenon)

Democracy can encourage corruption Finding an opponent increases cohesion (enables parties to stick to power like in

Yugoslavia) – demonizing a group or an extra-state power Minorities tend to do quite well under dictators (Yugoslavia). Puff dependence – success of a new democracy depends on what was there before.

 

Workshop 4: IR (continued)

 

Lecturer: Will Jones, Gavin Illsley 

Date: 04/07/06

Global governance

 

Debates often boil down to if an organization X is good or bad.  

Generic issues and tackling the case 

General characteristics: No point in organizations where the board meetings are attended by 3 men and a dog.

International organizations deal issues transcending the legal system of the national level (e.g. conflict resolution, cross boarder economic issues i.e. cases where states cannot cope unilaterally).

o One has to prove that the issue cannot be dealt with by bilateral talks Neutrality (e.g. unbalance of power) Legitimacy (e.g. pollution, where it is an issue for the global community)

Opposition’s line of reasoning

o Accountability: what is the control mechanism? International Organizations are incredibly remote from the parties involved or people. Often lack transparency (EU – only 1/3 vote in elections, European commission consists of ministers appointed by the government – third level delegation of power).

o Who are they to judge: We often jointly delegate power to an entity assuming that we have something in common in the particular field – e.g. crime. The fact of the matter is, that very often we don’t. ICC – crime considered as an universal entity whereas it very much depend on the culture (cultural relativism). E.g. universal human rights can be shown not to be universal in context based examples (e.g. capital punishment in US).

 

Entities 

Organizations can be supranational, national and subnational. 

UN General Assembly  congregation for expressing national hatred UN Security Council  Corrupt, gives privileged rights to western democracies based on the

outcome of a 50 year old war. Arguing for ASEAN, NATO, ECOES (?) vs. UN

o The former generally speak the same languageo Former allow more oversight (vs. UN who is constantly scrutinized and marked down for

inefficiencies).o Former are often dominated by a single countryo UN is massively inefficient (it is rumoured that the Liberia mission was conducted based on a

tourist map acquired from a local tourist information booth)o UN is amorphous and complex displaying little success

Key organization and their roleo WTO – world trade and financeo IMF – short term stabilization fundso World Bank – long term infrastructureo Kyoto – tradable carbon emission credits, calculated by the number of people and trees.

 

Workshop 5: Secession

 

Lecturer: William Jones, Gavin Illsley 

Date: 05/07/06 

2 issues to consider:

1. Moral basis2. Viability of the resulting states

Moral basis

  Precedent or reason (Israel and injustice to the Jewish nation in the 2nd WW). The nation needs it

cause otherwise they would be killed, tortured or otherwise systematically infringed upon. Right for nationalist self determination. Have to show that otherwise the entity cannot manage in a state (Albanians in Serbia)

o Demonstrate abuse of rightso Show what sparks the conflict

Chechnya  have the legitimate right to a state due to Russia’s ‘error’ of giving them the state in between and thereafter invading it

Bear in mind, that the creation of a new state wouldn’t create a new vulnerable prosecuted entity (Serbs in Kosovo).

Viability of the ensuing states

  Boarder policable (e.g. Northern Ireland)? Resources (are the secessee and the secessor both able to survive after the succession; e.g. Kosovo)

Opposing succession

 1. No moral claim (good since if practical or moral terms are overthrown the entire proposition case

falls)2. Viability3. Is there a viable political cluster to rule (colluding with one political group doesn’t mean that the rest

cooperate).4. Secessionist groups tend to lie in negotiations  claims aren’t the accurate measure of their initiative

drive and an indicator if their activities stop later (IRA and Basques).5. Helping secessionist groups helps other similar organisations in the region. Since they have common

illegal networks. Concept of contagion.6. Granting state rights to a nation creates and encourages similar endeavours by sending out a signal.7. Distinction between a nation and a state (African nationalism being an utopian myth).

 

Workshop 6: Development

 

Lecturer: Gavin Illsley 

Date: 05/07/06 

Typical topics:

1. Whom to give it to?: e.g. a separate body2. Tying it to a condition?3. Identifying the type of aid?

Moral aspect

  People starving is bad We owe them (post-colonial states, massive exploitation during the colonial ages)

 

African conundrum:

1. Tribes invented2. Export dependence (single export article), due to European mismanagement3. Unstable and unpredictable income (not lucrative for foreign investors)

Who to give aid to?

 

Criteria:

1. Coverage2. Efficiency (experience, language)3. Leverage

 

Options:

1. Government (corrupt, yet most leverage, direct help to areas of supporters and cities and neglect culturally and economically less developed areas)

2. NGOs3. Churches (little leverage, access sometimes better)

 

Workshop 7: Summation speech and identifying key areas of clash

 

Lecturer: Gavin Illsley 

Date: 05/07/06  

Structuring a summation speech 

Summation is more than summing up  it’s about showing why You won. 

Key task = to give a structure! 

There are several options how to give structure: 

1. Draw out areas of clash and show why we beat, what they said.2. Problem, Action, Solution scheme3. Most discussed arguments vs. discussing debate winning arguments

 

Debates lacking clash 

In case the debate has been lacking clash:

1. Find headings, under which vaguely clashing arguments fall and give reasons why your point takes priority

2. Give that opposition is half right, but show why in both cases you are right.

 

New material in summation speech 

Ultimately new material is very subjective. 

It is allowed to apply new viewpoints in the summation speech that show the topic from a different perspective. 

Little bit of new material is OK. 

If You have a debate winning new argument, try to ascribe the source of the argument to be in 1st prop/op and extend by ‘The thought underpinning that is …’. Give some credit to first prop and imply that Your partner built on it. 

POI can also serve as an emergency strategy to introduce arguments you wish to talk about in your summary speech. 

One of the summation points has to be your extension. 

Upon making the extension – the extension speaker should extensively consult the summary speaker, who has a better view of the debate and can suggest extensions that will win the debate.

Winning from 2nd prop if 1st prop was good

  Give framework Providing premises necessary for the 1st prop’s case to work Case study Broadening the scope In IR – look at state/supra-state/sub-state actors

EXERCISE: Identifying key areas of clash

 

1st proposition has to do a sort of ‘pre-emptive summary speech’ where the PM identifies key areas of clash. 

Identifies and explains the burdens of proof. 

THW ban all religious involvement in schools 

Imposing religion is breaching one’s liberty Religious bias is good/bad in education Prevention of indoctrination Scope of parental choice (child’s vs. parents freedom of choice)

 1. Parents vs. children2. State vs. church3. Minority vs. majority

 

THW condemn companies that seek to avoid 1 st   world regulation by going to 3 rd   world for drug testing  

1. Corporate interests vs. social responsibility2. Moral imperative vs. practical benefits3. Asymmetric power dynamics4. Individual rights vs. government’s duty to protect them5. Conceiting rationality6. Cultural relativism (Laws are just different  differential setting of minimum standard)7. Limits to giving consent

  

THW legalize consensual cannibalism 

1. Respecting free will2. Limits of consent (rationality)3. Taking advantage of vulnerability4. Sacrety of human life and body5. Actual harm

 

Proving rationality (irrationality and spotting which is which). Inability to take consequences into consideration classifies one as irrational.

Exploiting vs. rationality. 

Bodily integrity predicates any other physical pleasure  Lose choice over sexual pleasure Right = value of which is appraised by what it allows one to do Right to life = not only a right to pulse and food There are choices that cannot be rationally taken.

 

The concept of moral obligation

Universal obligation Justness

Reciprocity Practical grounds (if scrapping human rights makes a better society, then they would be scrapped

 

Source of rights

Pragmatic  reciprocity Derived from the divine nature of the human being Liberal: we owe every other human being the right to change and practice freedom of choice.

Granting a package of human rights. One can argue for prioritizing some human rights above another from the viewpoint that some rights increase the chance of living a free and choosing life.

 

Exploitation

Bank offering a boring job with a good payment  exploitation? Liberal scenario: Right equals the value attached to it (thus no exploitation exists). Fundamentalist scenario: A set of fundamental values exist. If one chooses to give any one of them

up, one is by definition irrational.

Arguing against gay marriages

  Marriage is the sacrament of the church It is homophobic to allocate marriage to gay people (it is a judeo-christian tradition designed for a

heterosexual white man  it is unjust to make gays concur to these rules) It is irrational to degrade the meaning of an institution to the majority in order to adjust it to the

minority. Adjusting heterosexual culture to homosexuals  resembles an attempt to make them more like

heterosexuals  thus more ‘normal’?

 

Workshop 8: Judging debate

 

Lecturer: Rose and Tim Yong 

Date: 06/07/06  

Name an argument, mark down examples, establish links (babies= happy people, cause happy people = good and hence babies = good).

Criteria for adjudication

 a. Contentb. Strategy

a. Contradictionsb. Definitionsc. Case divisiond. POIse. Structuref. Prioritizationg. Teamwork

c. Stylea. Funnyb. Persuasivec. Flirtiness

 

Appendix 1: Debate Topics in DAPDI

Workshop Topics

1. THW ban extremist political parties2. THBT state schools should teach in the languages of immigrant populations.3. THW introduces quotas for women in Parliament4. THW pay reparations to ex-colonies.5. THW grant immunity from prosecution to dictators who voluntarily step down.6. THW prosecute the perpetrators of domestic violence without the consent of the victim.

Tournament Topics

 1. THW strip the workers of their right to strike2. THW offer certain convicted criminals the choice of exchanging their prison sentence for corporeal

punishment.3. THBT all crimes should be tried by Jury.4. THBT rich countries should pay developing countries for preserving their rainforests.

5. THW ban all religious dress in schools.6. THBT the West has a duty to institute a government in Somalia.7. Semi-final: THW correct the deafness of children against the wishes of parents.8. Final: THW stop overseas development aid to be tied to the process of democratization.

Appendix 2: Debating Games

Elimination debate

2 against 2 (may be varied). Speeches of 3 minutes to prove or oppose a point. The public votes, who of the two remains. Next round with the remaining members ensues until only one man is left standing.

Just a minute

 

Call a topic. One has to speak for 1 minute on the topic. If one deviates, one has to be challenged. The challenger has to complete the minute talking on the topic and if successful, gains a point. Calls a new topic and names a person to talk on it. If can’t fill a minute, one loses.

Dull to exciting.

Have a row of people. Choose a well known story. From one end to another people have to tell the story by going progressively more interesting/engaging/emotional until the last one probably has to do loony things to top the previous speakers.