2024 TFA State Topic Analyses
We can’t believe it but we’re at the end of the regular season. For many, TFA will be the last major tournament they attend (in Texas). We are so proud of your season and no matter what happens at State, you are an amazing person and an amazing debater. Have fun and, most importantly, debate with no regrets. If you do that, you’ll be a winner no matter the outcome!
This topic analysis is a special love letter from us to you. We’re lucky to have the TFA finalists from last year offering their thoughts and perspectives on these new topics. We hope that these can supplement the great work you’ve already done and give all of us the best quality debates we can have at the biggest competition Texas has to offer. This article will cover:
“This House regrets the narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are essential for success” by Meera Thamaran
“This house believes that the harms of industrial agriculture outweigh the benefits” by Shrayes Gunna
“This house opposes the use of NDAs in legal settlements” by Mili Pathak
“This House prefers the use of African SWFs to fund African development projects over investments from outside the continent” by Sahith Mocharla
Happy reading and good luck at State!
This House regrets the narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are essential for success.
Context
Secondary college preparatory programs are highly relevant when considering education systems today. Many high schools in the US and abroad offer AP classes or the IB diploma, and the culture surrounding such programs, like most classes in general, is plagued with toxicity, competition, and pressure to succeed to avoid ruining chances for future success. Especially with the increasing conversations regarding selective admissions into prestigious colleges and beyond, with ever-limiting spots available at high-ranking blue-chip companies, dialogue regarding narratives within the education space is important and relevant.
Definitions & Framing
Debaters should clarify what “secondary college preparatory programs” are to avoid confusion. I would define them as educational programs, initiatives, and courses offered at the high school level designed to prepare students for success in higher education, like college or university. They primarily focus on providing students with a rigorous academic curriculum to teach them how to manage an advanced workload and aid their later transition to further education. Secondary college preparatory programs can look like AP and IB courses.
While some may consider Honors classes, standardized test preparation, or extracurricular activities to be secondary college preparatory material, they are not at the heart of the motion given that they 1) do not focus on educational preparedness at a higher level institution and 2) are not programs but rather student-led activities that high schools do not always offer.
Due to the specific wording of the motion, it’s also important to note the term “regrets” and clarify the terms “essential” and “success.” The word “regrets” in this motion means we must look back to the past when considering this motion. It means that arguments should revolve around how this narrative has created or not led to notable harms in today’s status quo rather than abstract future implications. Crucially, because this is a regrets motion, Prop regretting the narrative assumes that this narrative exists in the status quo– a status quo the Opposition should defend. Moreover, because this is a “regrets” motion, Proposition should offer a counterfactual (CF) to paint a picture of what their world would look like without the prevalence of the narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are essential for success by offering a competing narrative. In this case, that could look like a narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are helpful for success but not “essential” or primary indicators of success. This means people may not have felt obligated to participate in these programs, so they would not be as popular or relevant in the modern day when considering education standards in the first place.
Essential means "absolutely necessary; extremely important.” However, Prop would benefit from a characterization of the word “essential” as key to the degree that other avenues to success are secondary, as if when secondary college preparatory programs are prioritized as “essential,” the perceived value of everything else as an indicator of future success is inherently undermined. In contrast to that zero-sum viewpoint, Opp would benefit from characterizing “essential” as important, but not necessarily the sole contributing factor to success to avoid being pushed into a corner. Next, regarding “success,” the motion actually doesn’t necessitate defining what the term means to both sides. It seems to prioritize the “narrative” component, indicating that the meaning of “success” is up for debate. From a strategy standpoint, however, it might benefit Proposition to characterize success as something that’s been shaped by the narrative in question and Opposition to characterize success in a more definite manner. That definition could involve reaching favorable, lucrative outcomes or something along those lines. Ultimately, the Opposition stance is that notions of success are primarily shaped by external societal ideals, and secondary college preparatory programs are simply guiding tools toward that ideal.
Prop Ideas
Because Proposition argues against the status quo, the harms it points out perpetuated by the narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are essential for success may feel more intuitive. Linking success to performance within such programs can narrow definitions of success in general, extending beyond purely academic circles to fuel rampant toxicity throughout society. This happens in two ways.
Firstly, the prevalence of this narrative has created deep academic pressures in educational environments, practically forcing individuals to pursue more prestigious educational opportunities for the sake of it feeling like a ‘necessity’ to reach prestigious future outcomes (i.e., college admissions, exclusive summer programs, etc.). When something is seen as ‘essential’ to success, participation in that activity feels like a prerequisite rather than a supplementary tool. This pressure to follow specific educational trajectories has turned academic spaces into breeding grounds of toxicity and burnout, which is likely evident in almost every high school environment we have all encountered in our personal experience, to some extent. In these environments, people feel a strong need to prove their worth through academic success within such programs, as that becomes seen as the bare minimum for success rather than the exception worthy of praise. All of this has created wide-ranging spillover effects into the nature of college admissions and applications to prestigious workplaces, as seen by the ever-widening admissions pools and ever-decreasing admissions rates for high-ranking US colleges and companies.
Secondly, this narrative has contributed to the meritocracy myth, which refers to the idea that success is based on individual effort and achievement and that working harder and achieving more makes desirable outcomes more likely. This is because the notion that secondary college preparatory programs are ‘essential to success’ reifies the idea that advanced academic performance is the most relevant indicator of success, even though that is far from the truth– it blatantly fails to consider success factors like networking, nepotism, being at the right place at the right time,’ subjectivity in grades, and variances in educational institutions and opportunities. While this idea is more abstract and it is difficult to prove causation, if debaters can prove a marginal difference in the prevalence of the meritocracy myth in both worlds, this argument can be powerful in asserting the toxicity of the narrative in question.
A second argument exists on the grounds of accessibility. Prop can argue that this narrative furthers barriers to accessing successful outcomes. Because this narrative promotes the idea that such programs are necessary for success without acknowledging the systemic barriers preventing all people from accessing or excelling within this necessity, it creates an unattainable standard. Affluent students can leverage more test preparation and tutoring resources to excel in secondary college preparatory programs. In this way, not only does disparity in performance exist, but so does a disparity in the availability of these programs across all high school educational systems in the first place. This has created a cycle in which success has become inextricably tied to financial privilege. While, again, it is difficult to prove how impactful the specific narrative in question is to this cycle, it is easier to demonstrate that this narrative has had a substantial impact that the chosen CF would not share.
While Opp can call this nonunique, debaters can push back by differentiating how wealth can boost performance in academic programs from how it does so in extracurriculars or other opportunities for high schoolers. One rebuttal on this front is the idea that academic boosts are easiest to buy with wealth because there are objective metrics students can reach and, thus, material goals that students can work towards with the help of external resources like tutors. In contrast, other avenues to success, like entrepreneurship or personal development, are more subjective, measured by hard work or a degree of self-awareness. It is easier to manipulate grades with money because they are measured on a distinct scale in classes under specific programs in which tutors can get experience.
Finally, this argument can also extend to what diversity looks like in corporate settings. This narrative has contributed to a lack of diversity in corporate settings because people from underrepresented backgrounds or of lower socioeconomic status who face barriers to accessing such programs are underrepresented in the workforce due to the idea that they are perceived as less competent or valuable without such secondary programs in their resume when applying to college. Ultimately, when success is directly linked to academic output, which has accessibility obstacles, success is held in the hands of the wealthy.
Opp Ideas
The key to Opp on this motion is considering what outcomes this narrative has helped achieve. A primary argument for the opposition revolves around infrastructure and social capital. It asserts that this narrative has proved influential because it has increased infrastructure toward secondary college preparatory programs, equipping students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the future, whether for their career or their lives in general.
Secondary college preparatory programs equip students with academic skills like critical thinking, with a structured curriculum and standardized testing preparation extending past the classroom's bounds. They have contributed to the development of a skilled and competitive workforce. On an offensive note, regretting this narrative could compromise the international competitiveness of education systems. Essentially, such programs are good because they teach students valuable skills, and the narrative in question generates the social capital to invest in and build such programs to a higher extent, specifically in areas that would otherwise not develop the infrastructure to establish such programs.
The narrative that secondary college preparatory programs are essential for success creates the social capital necessary to establish a greater diversity of and subsequent greater accessibility of such programs. This is because a narrative prioritizing such programs as crucial components of future success creates demand, allowing social investment to turn into local and international educational initiatives. This grants Opp ground in the round on the inherent benefits of such programs, which can be beneficial if the narrative debate gets muddled and needs more strength as an independent path to the ballot. Specifically, this argument is strategic because the Opposition can very quickly come off as defensive by asserting the merits of secondary college preparatory programs; however, this intersects with the accessibility argument the Proposition is likely to make by stating that accessibility has gotten better due to this narrative. The world would be far more divided regarding wealth access if not for the prevalence of this narrative.
Secondly, an argument can be made on global competitiveness in education. In a highly competitive global landscape, secondary college preparatory programs contribute to developing a skilled and competitive workforce. By regretting the narrative, there is a risk of compromising the international competitiveness of the education system, so much so that the world is one plagued with global skill disparity. Countries like the US with a pre-existing greater leaning toward such programs may produce graduates with a competitive advantage so that gaps between nations in workforce competency and skill may not have been fixed to the extent they are today. Moreover, the past absence of such programs internationally could affect different nations in different ways: developed countries with strong emphasis on education, like the US, South Korea, and Singapore, might have experienced less international competitiveness; emerging economies aspiring to reach educational excellence like China and India who have been investing significantly in education might not have any longer had the ability or desire to do so anymore, and countries dependent on education exports like Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US, may have had less international students choosing to study there or even study abroad in the first place, given a lack of standardized secondary college preparatory options and general lack of internationally competitive further education opportunities. This impacts trade, the international workforce, and the gap between developed and developing countries regarding their educational opportunity.
Further Reading (Links To Articles)
Discover why IB students succeed - International Baccalaureate®
Exploring the Long-Term Effects of the IB Curriculum on Students' Academic Achievement
To be Globally Competitive, We Must be Globally Competent | Brookings
ENHANCING GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING: INSIGHTS INTO SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMMING
OPINION: AP/IB Classes Cause Unneeded Stress – Westwood Horizon
Can the International Baccalaureate program save black students? - The Washington Post
Meera Thamaran is a first-year student at Northeastern University studying Business Administration and Psychology with a concentration in Corporate Innovation. She competed in World Schools Debate for three years at The Hockaday School. Outside of debate, she loves painting abstract art, playing the guitar, and reading.
This house believes that the harms of industrial agriculture outweigh the benefits
Context
Before developing arguments regarding the motion, it is important to define what industrial agriculture is. While it seems self-explanatory—the mechanization of agriculture—the term has a vast breadth and depth particularly due to its constant technological and commercial innovation.
At face value, industrial agriculture is an often less labor-intensive form of production for crops and animals, and it is most evident in the commercialization of farming. Therefore, industrial agriculture is fittingly large-scale and deals with both animals and crops. There are a variety of ways in which simple farming practices become more technologically advanced and therefore industrial in scale, but some of the most important are factory farming, usage of machinery, genetically modified organisms, irrigation systems, etc. Because of the sheer fact that means of industrial agriculture are quite broad and at varying levels of complexity, the motion carves adequate space for both sides to really engage on the comparative level, illuminating the environmental harms of industrial agriculture and supply-level benefits.
The history of industrial agriculture dates back to the First and Second industrial revolutions from the 18th to 20th century. These revolutions mark the start of mechanical tools—plows, drills, reapers—and selective breeding in the realm of commercial agriculture. More specifically though, immense changes to agricultural production took place during the Green Revolution, including the development of irrigation to provide farmers with water in low-yield dry regions as well as fertilizers and pesticides to ensure larger harvests. At a top level, these changes emboldened higher yields for farmers and thereby increased the food supply on a global scale, but magnified the environmental effects of overconsumption.
While the previous sentiments emphasize the effects on plant-based agriculture, recent developments have placed a new magnifying glass on factory farming of animals, not only for its seemingly inhumane practices but also because of its mal-effects on human lives. Factory farms, most common in developed countries like the midwest of the USA, Australia, and across the European Union, mechanize the slaughter of animals from chickens to cows while simultaneously exhausting pastures and transferring harmful antibiotics into human bodies. Despite these seeming harms, the question persists in the comparative: how is food production going to rise aptly in cooperation with surging population growth?
Framing
With the crux of the motion being defined, it is also important to note that this is a believes motion. The opposition’s burden is not to envision a sensible counter-factual but rather engage in a cost-benefit analysis of industrial agriculture of the status quo. Still, I do think it is fair game for the opposition to press the reality of industrial agriculture, it is one of the only feasible means to generate a large enough food supply for 8 billion, and counting, people.
Proposition: harms outweigh the benefits
In initial Google searches of industrial agriculture, it becomes clear that the harms of the practice have garnered far more attention than the benefits, making the arguments generally more clear. To that end, storytelling throughout the case can help emphasize the gravity of the arguments (several stakeholders are affected so those visuals ought to be elicited by the proposition).
The first place where I find that side proposition has a strong argument is in the environmental effects of industrial agriculture. Because there are numerous negative implications of industrial agriculture, it leaves side proposition with the choice of whether to view the harms at a top level or zero in on a few. With that, the argument looks like environmental harm on every level. When it comes to climate change, the mechanization of farming and exhaustion of soil have produced harmful gasses and grain dust to enter the air, producing both pollution but also rising temperatures. The impact, of course, is clear: global warming and displacement of often minority communities that live in close proximity to these farms. While warming is global and indiscriminate in its impacts, the results of grain dust—cancers, asthma, etc—are an avenue of environmental racism, wherein low-income communities of color surrounding industrial mills or farms are disproportionately affected. An instance of such violence exists in “Cancer Alley,” a strip of land in Louisiana surrounded by grain and oil production.
What’s more is the effects of monoculture—the specialized nature of farmers—and land conversion that induces the loss of wildlife and biodiversity, especially when natural spheres are turned into flat farmland, to be over-exhausted again and again. This loss in biodiversity is extremely harmful in LDCs wherein imports are less likely and more costly, causing local communities to rely on a diverse set of natural resources. Another keen place of environmental harm is in the growing resistance of weeds and pests to pesticides that harm food production but also can slowly poison other populations by seeping into groundwater systems. The effects are again that much more costly in regions with less effective waste-water management.
The second potential argument to make is animal cruelty. If you have ever seen a movie or documentary depicting the factory farm culture in the American Midwest, it’s clear that the practice lacks regulation, transparency, and ethics. Not only are mass amounts of animals bred and fed only to be killed off systematically each day but these animals are conditioned to harmful circumstances such as confinement. That’s to say that animals are within feet of one another without space to move around on top of the mass of antibiotics they are forced to take—antibiotics that transcend and slowly harm the human body. Because of these conditions, these animals are subject to cruelly short lifespans and killed at mass, which is principally wrong. The weighing mechanism here is slightly more unclear, but on a principle level, these instances of cruelty are wrong while practically harmful to the human body.
Opposition: benefits outweigh the harms
The opposition arguments are less intuitive, though, in short, look like more grandstanding impacts. With that being said, the first place of argumentation is on innovation in so far as from the first industrial revolution, forward movements in industrial agriculture have spurred innovation in a variety of fields, but most prominently science. When it comes to industrialization, the usage of motors, steam, and other mechanical advancements in agriculture produced spillover effects, such as the loom. This increased productivity of course allowed economies to grow, but most importantly ensured food security in an uncertain world. Furthermore, the bounty of environmental harm has also ushered in the principally innovative notion of sustainability and its entanglement with every fabric of society, and largely agriculture with the development of hydroponics and vertical farming. To this end, the innovation brought about by industrial agriculture is a self-correcting cycle that creates security in a world confronting climate change and steep population growth. Another facet of this self-correction is biodegradable packaging, which speaking of storage, industrial agriculture placed a significant emphasis on food storage, transparency, and transportation, which largely contributed to higher health standards for the consumption of food. At the end of the day, it has offered financial, food, and health security.
Another potential practical argument to make regarding the benefits of industrial agriculture is its key role in nurturing global trade and access to essential nutrients no matter one’s region of origin. For one, by propelling farmers to increase the levels of production on often specialized goods, farmers and regions maintained more diverse products and competitive advantages, which facilitated globalization through equitable trading: equitable in terms of allowing farmers to dictate prices and distribution. Furthermore, because of food’s perishable nature, industrialized agriculture expanded transportation infrastructure by creating new and or faster routes for delivery, which allowed for more interconnectedness between country and state lines. In LDCs, these changes look like key infrastructural development and also an opportunity in the international market to expand their economic spheres of influence. LDCs often have unique climates and resources, providing a robust competitive advantage in global markets, and contributing to a reduction in poverty and an increase in food security.
Both of these arguments have unique angles in terms of their interaction with various stakeholders, which ought to be leveraged by side opposition. In this way, the opposition can create stronger storylines to undergird the mass impact.
Further Reading
Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history | Science and nature books | The Guardian
Farmers need practical innovation, not moonshots, to stave off global food crisis
Opinion | Why Industrial Farms Are Good for the Environment - The New York Times
Evolution of the agriculture industry & its role in agricultural innovation | Emerald Publishing
Shrayes Gunna is a freshman at Cornell University, navigating the fields of Asian Studies and Information Science. When not exploring various artistic mediums or crafting a new commentary, he can be found diving into vast pop culture rabbit holes. In the future, Shrayes hopes to combine his numerous interests in emerging markets, consulting, and law.
This house opposes the use of NDAs in legal settlements
Context
What is a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)?
An NDA is essentially a legally binding agreement that establishes a confidential relationship between two parties. Those who sign the NDA agree that sensitive information regarding the relationship will not be disclosed to others. Thus, it is often called a confidentiality agreement. There are two different types of NDAs: mutual and non-mutual. A mutual NDA means that both parties may disclose confidential information, and thus, both parties agree not to disclose information as each side is vulnerable. A non-mutual NDA means that only one party within the agreement is bound to confidentiality as they are not vulnerable to having sensitive information about themselves released.
What are NDAs used for?
NDAs can be used for many different purposes, but there are a couple of key examples of NDA usage. First, those employed by celebrities often sign NDAs to protect the celebrities' information and privacy. In this situation, we would likely see the use of a non-mutual or unilateral NDA. Second, businesses in negotiations with other companies often use NDAs to protect their non-public business information, such as to avoid their ideas and products being stolen and put into the hands of their competitors. In this situation, we would likely see the use of a mutual NDA. Finally, NDAs are also used in legal settlements, to establish confidentiality regarding the terms and details of the settlements. In terms of legal settlements, this usually means that neither party can disclose the specifics of the settlement to third parties, including the media.
What is a legal settlement?
A settlement is an agreement between two parties that ends a legal dispute. A settlement typically means that there is not a trial or any form of court judgment involved, which means that they are generally very private affairs. There are many terms and conditions that end up being the resolution of a legal dispute, or what the settlement tangibly translates to. This can look like, but is not limited to, things such as financial compensation, release of claims, non-monetary remedies, and more. However, confidentiality is the most important term and condition resulting from legal settlements, at least in this motion. What this means is that legal settlements can include provisions that require that parties keep certain information confidential, specifically through the use of an NDA.
How do people use NDAs in legal settlements in the status quo?
The use of an NDA in a legal settlement usually means that parties involved in the dispute keep information confidential. This may look like preventing parties from disclosing certain details about the settlement itself, but also may prevent either party from sharing information such as the circumstances behind the dispute itself, or any type of sensitive information related to the case.
Framework
Proposition
In my opinion, the framing for the proposition is fairly straightforward. A few things I would be sure to include in the framing: model, explanation of the comparative, and a burden.
Model: As the proposition, I would suggest making your model very simple, and just stating that your side would ban the use of NDAs in legal settlements altogether. Additionally, you can explain that all other uses of NDAs are supported, such as the signing of an NDA when getting either hired or fired from a job.
Comparative and Stance: I would spend this portion of your framework explaining WHY it is important to ban the use of NDAs in legal settlements and also establish what the comparative would look like. In my opinion, your stance should include an explanation of what many legal settlements often occur after, which can be high-profile sexual assault cases, etc. This is important because legal settlements can occur over very minor disputes or non-criminal cases, and so you want to use your position as the first speaker to characterize legal settlements as being about criminal cases, as it would grant you a lot of offense at least in the principled debate. A good example that you can bring up here would be the Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, who accused CEO Roger Ailes of attempting to sexually assault her. She received financial compensation from a settlement with Fox News, but according to Carlson, she was also asked to sign an NDA which forced her to stay silent about her story. Using her as a KEY example of what a legal settlement looks like, continue your stance by explaining how you prioritize supporting the victim and what they want to do over their oppressor. I also think that the stance should include that you prioritize giving victims a CHOICE with what they want to do with the information regarding the crime that was committed against them. Additionally, I would spend a brief amount of time characterizing what the opposition world would look like, and in this case, it should be something about how they provide people who have committed heinous crimes with a safe haven while silencing victims.
Burden: Your burden should always be what you think the strongest voter is, or what you think is likely to get talked about the most within the round. In this case, I would suggest making your burden either something along the lines of whichever side supports victims in whatever course of action they desire to take or something similar to whichever side prioritizes the victim over the criminal.
Opposition
The opposition framework should also include the same features.
Counter-Model: As the opposition, you should state that your side supports the use of NDAs in legal settlements.
Comparative and Stance: I believe that the opposition should really clarify their stance and the comparative debate today to bring them a lot of offensive ground. Primarily, I would suggest that the opposition clarify two important points. First, what legal settlements are generally about. It is more than likely that the proposition will attempt to frame most legal settlements as having to do with high-profile criminal cases such as sexual assault, murder, etc., to grant them a lot of ground. The opposition should do the opposite, and explain that a LARGE amount of legal settlements are usually not even criminal cases, and are civil instead, which means that many times it is not a question of “victim vs. oppressor” but rather, two parties in conflict with each other. However, it is important not to discount the existence of settlements that arrive from criminal cases as well. Second, I also think that it is important to clarify the purpose of an NDA. Obviously, an NDA can be used to keep victims of criminal cases silent. However, as the opposition, there are four key claims you need to make when addressing this. First of all, while you do not support the silencing of victims, you recognize that things such as monetary compensation are also crucial for the victim to receive, which is far more likely to occur in a settlement with an NDA, and it is also likely that far more compensation will be provided if that is the case. Second, an NDA includes far more things than just requiring that a victim stay silent, such as the identities and personal information of people involved in the case that may not be the oppressor themself. Third, in the case that the settlement is not in relation to a criminal case, an NDA is used for many things, such as protecting the trade secrets of corporations and more. These are all important statements to bring up within your stance because it puts the proposition behind for a couple of reasons. If you make these statements within your framing, I think it is easy to paint the comparative, or proposition’s world, as very extreme. That is to say, because of isolated instances, proposition bans the use of NDAs altogether, which often protect innocent parties involved in legal proceedings, are crucial for innovation and competition within companies, and more. However, if the opposition continues to use NDAs in legal settlements, this looks like supporting innovation and competition, supporting the majority of people involved in disputes, all while people who are victims of heinous crimes are receiving some form of monetary compensation for what they have had to endure. Obviously, it is not going to be easy for the opposition to win the debate around “silencing victims,” but with this framing, I think it gives the opposition a fighting chance, and will make for some very good clashes throughout the round!
Burden: I think that the opposition has strong offensive material in terms of business practices, such as protecting intellectual property, as well as supporting the privacy of innocent individuals involved in settlements. Thus, I would try to make the burden regarding one or both of these things.
Proposition
Two different types of arguments can be a part of your case: the principle and the practical. I will briefly discuss, and provide an example, of both of them.
Principle: I think the proposition has a lot of leeway to take the moral high ground here. First of all, to assume that moral high ground, I think it is incredibly important to push a narrative that is entirely focused on the victims of criminal cases that result in legal settlements. This looks like arguments centered around why it is wrong to silence the victim of a crime, or why a victim should always have a choice when it comes to what they want to do with the information surrounding a case that is about them and how they were harmed. Furthermore, it looks a lot like making arguments about justice. With that being said, an important principled argument that I would make on the proposition side of the house would be the principle of granting victims a choice of what they want to do post the legal settlement. Under the principle, the first thing to do is to explain why having freedom of choice is principally correct, and more important than any of the practical outcomes of today’s debate. There are many ways to explain this, but in terms of this case, you can explain that individuals deserve the right to own information regarding themselves, and this is true for a couple of reasons. First of all, individuals have self-autonomy, they own their bodies, and therefore, they own the information surrounding them as well. You can take an intuition pump here: forcing a farmer to work for 5 hours to take the crops and all of the profits that come from it and give it to somebody else is seen as theft and inherently wrong. The same principle applies to victims of criminal cases here. As a victim of a crime who has to sign an NDA, you essentially give the oppressor the “rights” to the information about the victim and strip the victim of having a choice of what to do with that information. After you have explained why this principled argument is important, you then have to explain why using an NDA violates that principled argument. First, you can discuss the parallel to the intuition pump I presented above. Second, you can also talk about the idea of “legal coercion,” because individuals signing an NDA in many cases may feel coerced into signing as a result of receiving a settlement. After you establish why this principle is important, and why it is violated, you also need to explain the impacts of this. Naturally, there are very many important impacts of this principled argument, but one thing you could discuss could be how by silencing the victim through an NDA, you are prioritizing the wrongdoer by granting them a shield from public backlash and any form of accountability. And because of this, you enable patterns of misconduct, but in my opinion, this begins to delve into practical case material.
Practical: Building off of the content I provided regarding the principle, I think an example of a good practical argument could be the notion of public safety, or how using an NDA in legal settlements can get in the way of that. Under this argument, it is first important to establish how an NDA actively blocks public safety from existing. This can happen in many ways, but here are a couple of examples. First, with a lack of transparency that comes from the existence of an NDA, the public fails to learn about potential dangers or wrongdoings going on. A second example of this argument is found in very tangibly public safety risks, such as if an NDA is signed because of people being harmed due to things like environmental hazards or defective products. After giving evidence for how an NDA restricts public safety, the next thing that you must do is provide important analysis of why this matters in the round. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but one thing that you could potentially say is that with the existence of NDA, you see both the perpetuation of a cycle of criminal activity, as well as a lack of public safety measures being taken, simply due to lack of awareness.
Opposition
I think the majority of the opposition’s offense rests on the idea of “privacy,” both in terms of the individual but also in terms of things like intellectual property and trade secrets. Thus, I think as the opposition, it is manageable to talk about privacy in both a principle and practical way
Principle: I would personally make the principle about the importance of privacy protection. After making that claim, I would then suggest you explain why privacy protection is principally important. I think you can do this in many ways, but I will provide you with two brief examples. First, I think it could be interesting to flip the autonomy argument that I mentioned in the proposition part of this topic analysis and use that as a justification for this principle. Essentially, you could argue that protecting someone’s privacy (ie: their information), respects the autonomy that they have. Protecting their privacy by not allowing others permission to speak about it basically ensures that people can actively decide on what aspects of their lives are shared with others. After you explain why this principle is important, you should move on to explain why an NDA specifically ensures that the principle is upheld. An example that I think you could use to justify this would be to elaborate on how NDA means that you are avoiding publicity. Finally, you move on to talk about the impacts of this principled argument, and an example of one could be how it ensures personal security.
Practical: I think a really strong, offensive, argument that the opposition can make under the practical is about the importance of intellectual property. First, under this argument, you need to explain why an NDA protects things like intellectual property and trade secrets. To do this, you can explain how a large amount of legal disputes often are between corporations and their employees, or between two corporations. Because of this, if NDAs are used, they can prevent the unauthorized sharing of things such as valuable IP and trade secrets. Then, you explain why this impact is so important. There are many important impacts of this argument, but one that I think is crucial to bring up is how if someone knows that their IP can be shared, they will not have the incentive to innovate anymore. Thus, with an NDA, you are promoting innovation and competition, which is good for societal growth.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, I think that there are many different paths you can take when framing the case or when writing either side, this is just the way that I saw it!
If you have any questions, feel free to email me about it at milipathak@utexas.edu! Good luck at State!
Helpful Links
Mili Pathak is a freshman Finance major at The University of Texas at Austin. Outside of her academics, she enjoys spending time at the Austin Public Library and Lady Bird Lake!
This House prefers the use of African SWFs to fund African development projects over investments from outside the continent.
Info Slide
A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund or entity that is commonly established from 6 types of surpluses, payments and exports.
Introduction
Hey y’all! Good luck going into finals, although if you’re reading this I guess it went well ;). A new tournament means new motions, this topic over sovereign wealth funds is quite interesting, I hope this helps! Good luck :)
Context
This topic fundamentally examines the mechanisms through which developing countries, particularly those in Africa, accrue funding and wealth. The primary mechanisms through which these countries agglomerate funding, first through foreign investment – most clearly exemplified through the Chinese BRI, American foreign investment in the Middle East, and Russian expansion into eastern Europe; however, the alternative being proposed centers on the (currently 25) African sovereign wealth funds which serve as viable alternatives to financing.
Sovereign wealth funds (SWF) are defined as a state-owned investment fund composed of money generated by the government. The funding for an SWF can come from a variety of sources – including resource surpluses, natural resource revenues, bank reserves, foreign currency operations, nationalized industries, and other varied financial assets. Africa currently maintains a broad spectrum of SWFs which coalesce into three main categories: First, Stabilization Funds (such as Botswana’s Pula Fund and Namibia’s commodity-backed Welwitschia Fund) which function as buffer mechanisms and operate relatively conservatively to tide over economies in unstable economic conditions – these stocks utilize liquid assets such as stocks and bonds; Second, Savings Funds (such as Mozambique’s planned Fundo Soberano de Moçambique and the Lagos State Wealth Fund) focus on creating long term economic value for upcoming generations within the country; Third, Strategic Funds (such as Gabon’s FGIS, Angola’s FSDEA and (EIH) Ethiopia’s Investment Holdings) which focus on present-day development, infrastructure, and investment.
This motion’s exigence comes at a time of crucial investment periods for developing countries; the question of the round is how best we can fund and facilitate development in these countries.
Framing
The first thought that probably comes to mind when reading the motion is likely surrounding the word “prefers.” At first glance, many people instinctively feel the need to defend a world where they have access to both funding mechanisms (for this motion these would look like SWFs and foreign investment). However, in this motion – especially because of the word “over” – this debate becomes far more comparable and unambiguous in a world where each side subscribes to one funding mechanism instead of the other ~ simply put, you’re either pro-SWF (prop) or pro-foreign investment. *Note* As a judge (who is judging at TFA) there is far more clarity surrounding the counterfactual and grounds for evaluation in this hypothetical because the debate becomes less circular and more tangible on the comparative.
The stance for the proposition here seems pretty intuitive. You should be defending a world where African Countries subscribe to the use of SWFs as opposed to foreign investment. Inversely, the Opposition would take on the opposite stance (foreign investment > SWFs); however, the Opposition does have the option of going for both ~ not preferring either but pursuing a world where we aim to strike a balance between the two mechanisms. The former stance is far more strategic because it does not limit your offense nor does it provide proposition with inherent concessions.
The next thing to consider once your stance is finalized is an actor analysis and potential path to the ballot or round strategy. The preeminent stakeholder in this round is African countries (and Africa writ large). There is a potential framing of this motion through a global lens; however, this is likely unstrategic for both sides. Given that we’re then going to analyze the motion through the perspective of an African Government, the nexus question of the round is which funding mechanism best ensures the long-term development and overall success of Africa writ large. Africa can be contextualized in a few key differentiating factors: First, Africa has abundant natural resources (more than any other place on earth) – this is incredibly important because, in the long term, these resources serve as a boon in Africa’s development, Second, African governments empirically have fluctuated in stability and system, Third, much of Africa is post-colonial which can characterize the specific types of foreign aid they’d likely be getting. Fourth, Africa’s prominent regional powers are South Africa, Ethiopia (which has the largest African SWF), and Egypt.
Given Africa’s developmental characteristics funding (through either mechanism) would likely be targeted towards infrastructural developments at the most fundamental levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: transportation (roads/public transport etc), food (supply and growth), water (cleanliness/production), and industrial development (housing and industry). However, these are broad strokes through which to view potential funding specifics – each side can be far more strategic by analyzing specific actor incentives and what they’d prefer (specific countries either internally or externally).
The burden of the round then becomes fairly intuitive: which side best enables and ensures development in the short and long term for Africa? Both sides of this debate have fairly strong grounds however they best crystallize in competing weighing mechanisms ~ ergo, the proposition likely has an easier time defending the long-term debate given its inclination towards domestic development and internal incentives; therefore, the opposition has the contrary benefit, with (likely) a larger amount of available up-front capital, there is a greater likelihood of short term success. HOWEVER, something to make note of is both sides can competitively contextualize and redefine what ‘success’ would look like in the short and long terms based on the incentives of each mechanized actor. An easy way to think about this is similar to winning the lottery – either you get $400 million upfront or $750 million but over the next 20 years; this is NOT a perfect parallel but it helps to wrap your head around the motion – although there are always external factors to consider.
Proposition
In terms of the principle debate, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit here. I think the most glaring principle argument can be found in the motion text itself: Sovereignty. To win this argument you need to prove that having agency is critical to human existence; for that to be true, it must follow that being alive isn’t enough – you must also practice culture, tradition, borders, etc. Every concept of ownership and identity only functions in a world where you have autonomy to make decisions – as a country or individual.
The practical arguments function honestly quite similarly across prop and opp; I’ve already marginally touched on the short vs long-term differences for prop and opp. Why then, does the prop have the upper hand? Presumably, all of the prop's practical arguments are going to be infrastructurally related, developmentally extended, and focus on long-term stabilization whether that is through governance, politics, social existence, etc. The crux of the issue is to distinguish what SWFs do vs foreign investment ~ what makes SWFs funding unique. What makes SWFs practically unique is the incentives they have vs foreign investment. Because SWFs are entirely facilitated by the countries themselves, they don’t pose the risk of becoming fodder for the cannons (fiscal and physical) of global hegemons.
The practical ground essentially functions on two levels: first, the aforementioned infrastructure ground, and, second, the political stabilization of a country. The political argument would center around incentive analysis of present actors (as well as analysis of short-term politicians in general), how foreign investment works, and why having internal mechanisms is preferable and inherently leads to a long-term (and therefore more stable) outlook and future.
We’ve already established that the proposition would be smart to evaluate this round under a long-term lens, now we need to analyze why this is the case. In terms of strategy, the prop could hypothetically concede the short-term efficacy of foreign investment and still win that SWFs are a net benefit. This is because there are countless observable examples of developing countries, especially within Africa, being exploited and debt-trapped. Look to Zambia, Angola, Djibouti, etc. These are all perfect examples that highlight the vexatious effects that foreign investments can have on a developing country. It’s important to note, however, that this despotic manipulation isn’t exclusive to the Eastern hegemons; America is just as guilty but in a far more subtle nature. Take Israel for example, which has become so dependent on US subsidization that it essentially has become a satellite state. I think, then, that you should be bringing it back to a sovereign perspective on the long-term AND explaining the unique mechanisms of independent development.
Opposition
Competing principle: African peoples have been empirically asymmetrically oppressed. This gives us a moral imperative to provide relief.
Most fear of foreign investment is Western fearmongering ~ it is a narrative of Eastern investment being bad because of prevailing Western sentiment. I think we can characterize *most* of the proposition’s defense against foreign investment under this framing; that it's mainly Western sentiment and propaganda about countries being ‘under the thumb’ of the Eastern government ie China. This argument, however, is flawed when you consider the global asymmetry that has prevailed for hundreds of years during the colonial era. Considering that it is only recently that many developing countries began undoing the yoke of oppression, it is hypocritical and unprincipled to maintain a stance wherein foreign aid is bad simply because of where it might come from. Given that these countries have been historically oppressed, they should be allowed to seek restorative aid and investment; furthermore, this also functions as a restorative action because the argument can be made that because most foreign investors were likely also colonizers at some point, they owe it to developing countries to prop them up.
Secondly, the prop’s argument only functions under the assumption that African countries cannot think for themselves and make good decisions. I think a lot of props arguments could center around bad governance and debt trapping, and while that may be true, a smart way to mitigate it would be to characterize a lot of that analysis as reductive. Many African countries engage in high levels of global diplomacy and development ~ it is, therefore, likely asinine to assume that they’d make consistently terrible decisions simply because there’ve been bad decisions in the past. Prop has to UNIQUELY prove why these countries will continue to make bad decisions and not simply agree to foreign investment deals that are better for the country.
An alternative to the previous set of arguments operates under the assumption that most developing countries have unstable governments and succession plans. Many of the most significant SWFs are not the most transparent about their practices → SWFs are incredibly susceptible to malpractice and corruption; therefore, all of the prior investment can become mismanaged, autocratic, or diverted from the people and towards goals external to their needs.
Last Thoughts
This debate should mostly center around two key deltas (obviously). The principle debate could and perhaps should center around sovereignty, restitution, democracy (or governance in general), and perhaps a utilitarian framework. The practical debate can function in a few ways, first in both the short and long-term outcomes on either side, second in the types of investment and infrastructure both sides can hope to achieve, and third an argument on globalization and how each type of investment can affect the way countries interact with an increasingly interconnected world.
Good luck if you’ve made it this far, excited to see what you come up with! :)
Further Reading
Sahith Mocharla is a first year student at the University of Texas at Austin studying Business and International Relations & Global Studies (IRG). Outside of studying you can find him avoiding dining hall food and studying (watching movies).
