Stock issues

In the formal speech competition genre known as policy debate, a widely accepted doctrine or "debate theory" divides the deliberative elements of proving the resolution affirmative into five logical issues, called the stock issues. Stock issues are sometime referred to as on-case arguments or simply on-case or case as opposed to off-case arguments.

Logicality

Three issues must first be present in the affirmative case and are the building blocks of logically choosing to take any action (in policy debate or in everyday life). They ask: what are we doing now (inherency stock issue)? What could we be doing differently (solvency stock issue)? What are the results of what we are doing now versus what we could be doing (significance stock issue)? The last stock issue, topicality, is procedural and unique to debate as it concerns how germane the plan (specifically, plan text) is to the resolution (which isn't usually a restriction in contemporary, outside policy issues).

Components

The stock issues are:

  • Structural inherency: Laws or other barriers to the implementation of the plan or causes of harms
  • Attitudinal inherency: Beliefs or attitudes which prevent the implementation of the plan or causing harms
  • Existential inherency: The harms exist and res ipsa loquitur, the status quo must not be able to solve the problem. It just is.

While logically these issues are distinguishable, in practice they may not be addressed individually or in any particular order.


References

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