One interesting aspect of policy debate is that the most basic of “rules” for the activity may be subject to challenge and discussion in the debate round. One of the most basic conventions which over the last decade has been the focus of intense scrutiny is the concept of “fiat power”.

Fiat is the assumption by the affirmative that the plan can be passed into law, despite the inherent barriers which exist in the status quo which have kept the plan from passing. The necessity to demonstrate such inherent barriers was the main impetus for fiat - otherwise the affirmative would be in a “catch-22” situation - the very fact of inherent barriers would be a reason to reject the affirmative as unfeasible.

Fiat provides both the affirmative and the negative with something else besides the ability to overcome inherency. Fiat allows both teams to model a world in which the plan is in existence, so that they can ask what would happen next. Obviously, the affirmative argues that the advantages of plan adoption would be great, whereas the negative team will try to find reasons why the plan will cause disadvantages which mitigate any potential advantage. Is it possible that in the course of such a modelling exercise either team is deluded into thinking that fiat power is real, and that as a result of voting affirmative the plan will actually be passed? Of course not - all that fiat is supposed to do is grant rhetorical space so that both teams can discuss the policy merits of plan passage.

The reason fiat power has been challenged recently is so that a relatively new type of argument can gain traction in a policy debate round - the “critique”. Whereas a disadvantage is linked off of some consequence of plan passage, a criticism of the affirmative may be linked off of any particular piece of rhetoric that the affirmative utters. For example, one thing that a negative team can count on is that the affirmative will call on the federal government to act (since the affirmative must do so in order to be topical); therefore, the negative may seek to offer a critique of such an advocacy, on the grounds that advocating federal government action is bad (for any of a number of reasons). In a world of fiat, such an argument would fail because it is not unique - with or without the affirmative, the federal government acts all the time, so using the government to implement the affirmative is not a unique action (i.e., in the world without the affirmative plan, the government would still exist, and many others would still be calling for various types of federal action, so the additional instance of the affirmative relying on the federal government would not be a reason to reject the plan). However, in the world of a pure criticism, the affirmative advocacy provides a unique link - so if it can be proven that governmental action is bad, and if it can be proven that there’s an alternative to governmental action, then a new realm of argument-space has been achieved, and a new rationale to reject the affirmative.

Obviously the problem with such a tactic is that the discursive space achieved in favor of the critique, which is granted by removing fiat power, comes at the cost of sacrificing the ability to discuss what may actually happen by passing the plan. Such a loss forces one to consider the very purpose of policy debate. If we ask students to discuss matters of policy so that they can become responsible citizens - and even more importantly, actual lawmakers, capable of advocating good plans over bad ones, then removing fiat from a debate round sacrifices the very purpose of policy debate. It is ironic to hear teams defend critiques and argue against fiat by saying that fiat silences them from offering their arguments, when in reality what is really being silenced is the forum for discussing what our government should be called on to do. For example, without fiat students can’t reasonably argue that increases in United States support of United Nations peacekeeping may help to render the United States more multilateral in posture (since such a change won’t in fact happen as a result of a debate judge in a high school debate round voting affirmative); this loss in argument space could deprive students of the ability to learn about multilateralism, or hegemony, or deterence theory, and thus render them unable to make educated choices in elections to follow. Instead, they will steeped in the much more hypothetical realm of arguing against rhetorical choices, or core philosophical positions - important issues certainly, but not in comparison to policy choices which can affect millions of lives, and the course of nations.

Now more than ever, there is a dire need for pure policy debate. Anyone who doubts this should obtain a tape of the Bush/Kerry debates which were held before the 2004 election. If fiat power is the only way to preserve such debate, it should be defended. Nobody thinks that if you vote affirmative, the plan actually happens - but all should understand that without the ability to wonder what would happen in the world of the plan, there is no mechanism for modelling what might be, in a better world.