Government policy refers to the decisions and actions undertaken by a government to influence and regulate society. It can take the form of laws, regulations, guidelines, and action plans for addressing problematic social issues. Policymakers identify and prioritize issues that require their attention and resources, and work through a process known as agenda setting, policy analysis, and policy implementation. Policymakers also consider the impact and costs of proposed solutions through a process of cost-benefit analysis.
A popular advantage argument in debate is the concept of trade-offs: reducing one problem, such as education spending, may result in another issue – for example, greater economic growth or reduced inequality – becoming more prominent in society. This is an effective strategy to highlight the inherent trade-offs of any proposed solution and shows the difficulty of finding a perfect policy.
Policy debates often feature a wide range of controversial topics, such as weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the number of refugees to be accepted each year by a country (immigration), and the use of indefinite detention by the United States government (indefinite detention). These controversial policies provide debaters with the opportunity to explore some of the most important and complex issues facing the world today.
During the policy debate process, affirmative teams must prove that a given problem exists and demonstrate its significance and harms. They must also show that the government is failing to address this problem and that their proposal will succeed in solving it. In addition to this, debaters must contend with a variety of critical arguments (or kritiks) from the negative team. These can include assertions that the affirmative’s solution will entrench or support a certain political ideology, such as capitalism, or that their theory is flawed in some other way.