February Public Forum Topic Analysis

The February 2015 Public Forum topic dissects a fantastic subject area but does so using a poorly worded topic. The literature informing the debate about economic globalization is multifaceted, nuanced, and thorough. As a topic subject area, it could stand an entire year of debate without going stale. Unfortunately, the inclusion of "benefits worldwide poverty reduction" acts as a restrictive clause, precluding discussion of major aspects of economic globalization and heavily limiting the impact debate.

I have written at length about the politics underlying restrictive impact clauses in Public Forum Debate topics¹. In addition to the normative problems involved in forcing debaters into a limited view of the actual debate on globalization, the current wording deprives debaters of engagement with the actual crux of the literature debate. The discussion between proponents and opponents of globalization deals with inequality and absolute wealth increase². By selecting an impact measure that focuses exclusively on the metric favored by proponents of globalization, the topic takes an ideological step³ that drastically reduces the ability of debaters to glean meaningful insight into the literature unrelated to "worldwide poverty reduction."

Debaters should bear this limit in mind when developing cases and forming strategic answers. All impacts on the topic must terminate with "worldwide poverty reduction". Other phenomena that result from globalization are irrelevant except to the extent that they bear a relation to worldwide poverty reduction. Since the topic literature does not reflect that limit, debaters may need to find supplemental link cards or articles that connect particular phenomena identified in case to the topic's impact metric.

There are thus two primary types of cases that may be constructed on this topic. First, affirmative and negative debaters can survey the empirical literature that directly ties globalization to poverty reduction. This type of argument is relatively straightforward, and sees poverty reduction as a function of wealth in society. As measures of wealth increase, it seems to follow that poverty necessarily decreases⁴. Both the benefit and the drawback of this position type is its simplicity. Though easy to understand, it is also easy to defeat. Personally, I also find this type of approach relatively dry.

The second tactic debaters can take is to connect economic globalization to a secondary phenomenon, and then connect that secondary phenomenon to poverty alleviation. Most negative debaters intuitively do this when reading negative cases focused on income inequality, which they hopefully then connect to poverty alleviation. However, I think the empirical literature supports a broader and more exciting set of connections than the income inequality argument. These connections – though perhaps not immediately apparent – offer some of the most strategic ground for debaters on this topic. An example of the second type of case ties economic globalization to terrorism.

Debaters will find support in the literature for the proposal that economic globalization fosters terrorism in a variety of ways. There is a clear empirical link between economic inequality and terrorism, because the social hierarchies created by economic hierarchies provoke sentiments of desperation and outrage from those on the lower social rungs. The outrage provoked escalates to violence on a relatively regular basis, and is especially pervasive in countries where resources dedicated to enforcing the rule of law are already spread thin because of a burgeoning population in poverty. Debaters may also find literature that suggests that the process of "opening" economic markets involves drastic cultural and social reordering, which produces social backlash in the form of terrorism. Making a country "market conducive" often involves discarding or minimizing cultural values relating to community, family, and subsistence agriculture, and instead supplanting them with a rigid focus on individualism⁵. It often also is accompanied by an influx of foreign technology that is received with less-than-open arms⁶.

Once debaters establish the link between the topic and terrorism, they must establish an internal link between the terrorism impact itself and worldwide poverty reduction. There are several ways to do this. First, debaters can argue that terrorists themselves destroy infrastructure that alleviates poverty. There are documented instances of terrorists targeting food repositories, public health works, social service workers⁷, and similar poverty alleviation programs. Second, debaters can argue that terrorists in a country provoke a response from Western countries. For example, the United States carpet bombing of Iraqi medical infrastructure and food repositories in the aftermath of the Pakistani terrorist attacks in September of 2001 was powerful and devastating⁸. The literature establishing the link between war and poverty is thorough, well-warranted, and methodical and will provide debaters enormous impacts that likely overwhelm affirmative benefits. For example, globalization may increase wealth to purchase food, but if it also creates an increased likelihood of terrorism and war, then the destructive results of the war may mean there is no food left to purchase. For that reason, it is important for debaters to consider argument interaction between contentions.

Topicality

This topic is likely to result in an immense number of topicality debates because the scope of both essential concepts in the resolution ("economic globalization" and "worldwide poverty reduction", respectively) is highly contested in the literature. I will discuss the various measures of worldwide poverty reduction in a later article on the topic.

Economic globalization will be difficult to identify as an isolated phenomena because it developed in tandem with the two other primary forms of globalization: cultural globalization and political globalization. Because these phenomena are interrelated and contemporaneous, it will be difficult to identify both the scope of causation that can be attributed to any one of form of globalization individually. It will also be difficult to disaggregate the best category for particular phenomena that exist at the intersection of types of globalization⁹.

There is a strategic consideration involved in identifying the relationship between economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization. If debaters can identify that a phenomenon is the result of two or more types of globalization, they can flip the burden of proof on their opponents. An example is illustrative: as noted above, a potential negative argument is that economic globalization results in an increased likelihood of terrorism as the result of the economic inequality that tends to accompany globalization. However, affirmative debaters can suggest that the increased likelihood of terrorism is at least partially the result of cultural and political globalization. It is uncontroversial to assert anti-Western terrorist organizations are ideologically opposed to Western culture¹⁰. Further, the imposition of Western forms of government has provoked the ire of international terrorist organizations. Thus, both cultural and political globalization play a role in motivating anti-Western terrorism.

As a result, the affirmative can argue that the negative is unable to quantify how much terrorism results from economic globalization uniquely. If terrorism is not a phenomenon whose causes are easily divisible, then there is no way to measure the amount of the contention that can be attributed to economic globalization. Even if the negative wins that terrorism is aggravated by economic globalization, it is unlikely (if not impossible) to quantify precisely how much terrorism is aggravated uniquely. Since the negative can only discuss the relationship between terrorism and economic globalization abstractly – without reference to a quantifiable impact – the affirmative can argue that there is no way to weigh the contention in the round.

Because of this logistical difficulty, debaters should try to shift the place this debate occurs from contention level to definition level. Debaters should devote a substantial amount of time to cutting topicality cards on this topic. Topicality cards identify and define the scope of particular terms in the resolution. Broader definitions of terms (such as "economic globalization") may help avoid debates like the one described above by including the whole of globalization under the banner of economic globalization.

In addition to framing the substance of debate, topicality cards may also identify particular phrases as terms of art, which are subject to consideration outside of their plain language meaning¹¹. Most literature that examines the resolutional subject areas in depth will also include a section defining the terms as used in the article or book. Other books or articles will be entirely devoted to exploring the meaning of particular term¹². Champion debaters will find and cut the latter type of article and then identify reasons to prefer those cards in round.

How to Research This Topic

The type of literature that is best for research varies based on the subject of the topic area. On constantly changing topics, the best literature is written in articles. For example, the 2014 NSDA Nationals topic dealt with Russian aggression in Ukraine. Because the situation was unprecedented¹³, there was a dearth of developed academic literature on the topic¹⁴. Furthermore, even small factual changes in the situation could drastically shift the arguments about the situation. One false move by a Russian soldier and the region is faced with escalating conflagration. In short, the topic was subject to drastic shifts based on small changes.

The February 2015 topic is perhaps at the opposite side of the spectrum. No single current event could change the applicability of topic literature in the same way changes might affect the Russia topic. The literature on the topic is largely presented in peer-reviewed¹⁵ journal articles and books exploring the subject. As noted in the earlier section of this topic analysis, the relationship between economic globalization and poverty is multifaceted, nuanced, and complicated. The complexity of the topic area should drive the way debaters research: this topic needs books.

Debaters should generally stay away from news articles and publications. Because of length limits, these articles are per se unable to give debaters anything more than an extremely cursory view of the topic. Since popular media tend towards sensationalism and melodrama, these superficial articles are also likely to cover similar topics (e.g. whatever is trendy). Such articles are not worth research time because they tend to be claim heavy, qualification light, and warrant empty.

Journal articles are substantially better for research purposes. These articles are especially useful because they regularly provide targeted analyses of a particular phenomenon. For example, a journal article might have an in-depth focus on globalization and poverty alleviation in China, which would be highly useful to construct and combat cases that focus on China. Other articles might focus on particular themes – such as globalization and technology dispersion, or globalization and income inequality – and are highly useful for cutting blocks. Debaters who cannot access articles that are behind pay walls should contact alumni in college, because most colleges give access to major journal databases like JSTOR. Debaters can also post on the MyDebateTeam forums and ask benevolent members of the community to help them access articles.

The final source type debaters should examine is published books. A surprisingly large number of books can be found online by googling¹⁶ the book's title in quotes followed by the letters "PDF"¹⁷. Debaters can also use Google Books which offers digital versions of some books at low cost. As a last resort, debaters can also search for reviews of particular books. Book reviews often summarize the main assertions and arguments of an author, so debaters will have access to an abridged version of the content in the book by virtue of the review.

Once debaters have access to a book, they should use the table of contents to conduct targeted reading. Though debate research obviously takes time, it need not take excessive amounts of time. Debaters should skim the book's table of contents to determine which chapters are likely to have the most useful materials. The process of effectively skimming from tables of contents is one that takes time to do well. In part, debaters should take reading cues from keywords in the title of chapters¹⁸. In part, culling the best chapters from books is a skill that develops over time. Debaters should also read the introduction and conclusion chapters to most books since they may open and close the book, and thus may be strongly worded and well suited to carding. On most topics, one to three well-chosen books should be sufficient to fill a card file.

Conclusion

Champion debaters should survey the literature thoroughly and bear the topic's phrasing in mind as they cut cards. Though the topic imposes unfortunate limits on the scope of discussion, it is still possible for debaters to learn an immense amount about international political economy through the topic. Since books are likely the best sources for this topic literature – both because of their depth and because of their expansive breadth – debaters would be well-suited to spending their time reading there.

Good luck this month!

[1] See, for example, this article: https://championbriefs.com/blog/invisible_impacts

[2] Opponents of globalization suggest that increased globalization causes income inequality. Proponents suggest that increased globalization increases the absolute global standard of living. The lively debate in the literature is whether the increased income inequality is justified by the increased absolute standard of living.

[3] This ideological step mirrored a broader trend in academia that is perhaps best expressed by the familiar maxim "out of sight, out of mind". By limiting the resolution to the pro-globalization metric, the topic committee endorsed salience for the pro-globalization camp while silencing the core discussions that oppose globalization.

[4] This type of argument is highly simplistic in several senses, including its conception of poverty as an absolute (rather than relative) measure, its collection and analysis of data, and its necessary generalizations about poverty. Each of these arguments will be explored in a later article on framework.

[5] Capitalist economics rely on individuals who are willing to compete with each other in a market setting. If members of a culture value cooperation and mutual care over ruthless and often unforgiving competition (the very mechanism of the market) must either lose their cultural identities or fail to globalize. Either scenario presents a problem for the affirmative.

[6] Debaters can easily recall the November GMOs topic and the relative backlash to that technology – the backlash dealing with other technologies is not substantially different.

[7] It's possible that you could even recycle cards from January contentions dealing with humanitarian workers.

[8] It's worth noting that the wholesale slaughter in Iraq demonstrates that terrorist attacks may provoke a response far beyond their scope. It is well-settled that the September 2001 attacks against the United States did not originate from Iraq (and was well settled at the time – Donald Rumsfeld's notes in the aftermath demonstrate as much: "Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by one of them. ‘Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly,' the notes say. ‘Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and not.'" For more information, see: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/24/freedomofinformation.september11 ). Despite not originating from Iraq, Iraq (and Afghanistan, another unrelated country) got swept up in the ensuing Western war. Western willingness to wantonly invade the Middle East means that one attack from one place is likely to have sweeping regional results.

[9] A common example of intersection is the Harry Potter book series. The global popularity of the Harry Potter series is undoubtedly due to increasing social and cultural interconnection between Western markets and other markets abroad. However, the actual sales of Harry Potter books are facilitated by the international trade networks of economic globalization. It appears logically impossible to isolate the international sale of Harry Potter books from cultural globalization. Whether those sales are pertinent to the topic is an issue that debaters will have to parse in their individual rounds.

[10] It is further well-established that fears of cultural erosion and cultural corruption may motivate transnational terrorists.

[11] "Terms of art" are terms that have particular meaning in a context. For example, the term "turn" means something different to debaters than it normally means to non-debaters. When discussing debate, it would be a mistake to refer to the plain language meaning of "turn" because of this contextual meaning. If a term is a term of art, it should be used with its contextual meaning rather than its plain language meaning.

[12] Cards from these articles might be more persuasive in rounds because they contain an "intent to define" – in other words, the author's central assertion deals with defining the term. In other parts of the literature, a term's meaning might be implicitly suggested by its context. For example, "the most effective democracy assistance programs are poll watching and civil society aid" contains the implicit assertion that democracy assistance includes those two activities. However, the purpose of that assertion is to laud "poll watching" and "civil society aid" rather than to define "democracy assistance" as inclusive of those two elements. Because authors may use terms sloppily or casually, "intent to define" is an important component of topicality analysis.

[13] Russian aggression – and overblown Western responses – are not new to the international relations literature, but this particular intervention and particular context were indeed new. Putin's Russia had never invaded Poroshenko's Ukraine before.

[14] For example, nobody could publish a book on Russian aggression on day two of the Russian invasion even if they had the capability to write that quickly because publication is a time-intensive process.

[15] Please note: most articles are peer reviewed by three to five reviewers. I heard two debaters at Emory – who I will not name out of courtesy – assert their article was "reviewed by hundreds of Ph.D's" because it was subject to peer review. That is not ever the case, even for larger works like books. I certainly support evidence comparisons and encourage debaters to do them – debaters must simply do them credibly.

[16] This advice should not be construed as either legal advice or instruction to violate copyright laws.

[17] For example, a search for a book titled Christian's Favorite Book by Andrew Dolberg would look like this: "Christian's favorite book" dolberg PDF

[18] A chapter titled "the history of globalization" is likely largely irrelevant and thus inefficient to read. However, a chapter titled "A survey of empirical literature on globalization" is probably the first chapter you should read.