Northwestern Debate Institute 2010 2

Northwestern Debate Institute 2010 2

Seniors Aff K Answers

Misc Aff K

Misc Aff K 1

Realism Inevitable 2

Realism Perm 3

Academic Debate Good 4

Reps Focus Bad 5

Capitalism Good – Space 6

Capitalism Good – War 7

Cap Inevitable 8

Cap Sustainable 9

Cap Sustainable 10

AT: Cap – Transition Wars 11

AT: Cap – Alt Fails 12

Cap Good – Indo Pak 13

AT: Security K 14

Consequentialism Good 15

AT: Orientalism 16

Realism Inevitable

Realism inevitable

Guzzini 98 (Stefano Guzzini, Professor at the Central European University, 1998 Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy)

Third, this last chapter has argued that although the evolution of realism has been mainly a disappointment as a general causal theory, we haveto deal with it. On the one hand, realist assumptions and insights are used and merged in nearly all frameworks of analysis offered in International Relations or International Political Economy. One of the book's purposes was to show realism as a varied and variably rich theory, so heterogeneous that it would be better to refer to it only in plural terms. On the other hand, to dispose of realism because some of its versions have been proven empirically wrong, ahistorical, or logically incoherent, does not necessarily touch its role in the shared understandings of observers and practitioners of international affairs. Realist theories have a persisting power for constructing our understanding of the present. Their assumptions, both as theoretical constructs, and as particular lessons of the past translated from one generation of decision-makers to another, help mobilizing certain understandings and dispositions to action. They also provide them with legitimacy. Despite realism's several deaths as a general causal theory, it can still powerfully enframe action. It exists in the minds, and is hence reflected in the actions, of many practitioners. Whether or not the world realism depicts is out there, realism is. Realism is not a causal theory that explains International Relations, but as long as realism continues to be a powerful mind-set we need to understand realism to make sense of International Relations. In other words, realism is a still necessary hermeneutical bridge to the understanding of world politics. Getting rid of realism without having a deep understanding of it, not only risks unwarranted dismissal of some valuable theoretical insights that I have tried to gather in this book, it would also be futile. Indeed, it might be the best way to tacitly and uncritically reproduce it.

Realism Perm

Using realism with critical theory is necessary to stop the alternative from devolving into counterproductive, purely abstract theory

Murray 97 (Alastair J.H. Murray, Professor of Politics at University of Wales, 1997, Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics)

In Wendt’s constructivism, the argument appears in its most basic version, presenting an analysis of realist assumptions which associate it with a conservative account of human nature. In Linklater’s critical theory it moves a stage further, presenting an analysis of realist theory which locates it within a conservative discourse of state-centrism. In Ashley’s post-structuralism it reaches its highest form, presenting an analysis of realist strategy which locates it not merely within a conservative statist order, but, moreover, within an active conspiracy of silence to reproduce it. Finally, in Tickner’s feminism, realism becomes all three simultaneously and more besides, a vital player in a greater, overarching, masculine conspiracy against femininity. Realism thus appears, first, as a doctrine providing the grounds for a relentless pessimism, second, as a theory which provides an active justification for such pessimism, and, third, as a strategy which proactively seeks to enforce this pessimism, before it becomes the vital foundation underlying all such pessimism in international theory. Yet, an examination of the arguments put forward from each of these perspectives suggests not only that the effort to locate realism within a conservative, rationalist camp is untenable but, beyond this, that realism is able to provide reformist strategies which are superior to those that they can generate themselves. The progressive purpose which motivates the critique of realism in these perspectives ultimately generates a bias which undermines their own ability to generate effective strategies of transition. In constructivism, this bias appears in its most limited version, producing strategies so divorced from the obstacles presented by the current structure of international politics that they threaten to become counter-productive. In critical theory it moves a stage further, producing strategies so abstract that one is at a loss to determine what they actually imply in terms of the current structure of international politics. And, in post-modernism, it reaches its highest form producing an absence of such strategies altogether, until we reach the point at which we are left with nothing but critique. Against this failure, realism contains the potential to act as the basis of a more constructive approach to international relations, incorporating many of the strengths of reflectivism and yet avoiding its weaknesses. It appears, in the final analysis, as an opening within which some synthesis of rationalism and reflectivism, of conservatism and progressivism, might be built.

Academic Debate Good

Debates about threats in the academic world result in better policy-making—real threats can be confronted and prevented.

Walt 91 (Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago, [Stephen Walt, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, p. 229-30])

A recurring theme of this essay has been the twin dangers of separating the study of security affairs from the academic world or of shifting the focus of academic scholarship too far from real-world issues. The danger of war will be with us for some time to come, and states will continue to acquire military forces for a variety of purposes. Unless one believes that ignorance is preferable to expertise, the value of independent national security scholars should be apparent. Indeed, history suggests that countries that suppress debate on national security matters are more likely to blunder into disaster, because misguided policies cannot be evaluated and stopped in time. As in other areas of public policy, academic experts in security studies can help in several ways. In the short term, academics are well placed to evaluate current programs, because they face less pressure to support official policy. The long-term effects of academic involvement may be even more significant: academic research can help states learn from past mistakes and can provide the theoretical innovations the produce better policy choices in the future. Furthermore, their role in training the new generation of experts gives academics an additional avenue of influence.

Reps Focus Bad

Exclusive focus on representations erodes meaningful reversal of structures of exploitation – causes extinction

Giroux 6 (Henry Giroux, Professor of education and cultural studies at Penn State, Comparative Studies of South Asia)

Abstracted from the ideal of public commitment, the new authoritarianism represents a political and economic practice and form of militarism that loosen the connections among substantive democracy, critical agency, and critical education. In opposition to the rising tide of authoritarianism, educators across the globe must make a case for linking learning to progressive social change while struggling to pluralize and critically engage the diverse sites where public pedagogy takes place. In part, this suggests forming alliances that can make sure every sphere of social life is recognized as an important site of the political, social, and cultural struggle that is so crucial to any attempt to forge the knowledge, identifications, effective investments, and social relations that constitute political subjects and social agents capable of energizing and spreading the basis for a substantive global democracy. Such circumstances require that pedagogy be embraced as a moral and political practice, one that is directive and not dogmatic, an outgrowth of struggles designed to resist the increasing depoliticization of political culture that is the hallmark of the current Bush revolution. Education is the terrain where consciousness is shaped, needs are constructed, and the capacity for individual self-reflection and broad social change is nurtured and produced. Education has assumed an unparalleled significance in shaping the language, values, and ideologies that legitimize the structures and organizations that support the imperatives of global capitalism. Efforts to reduce it to a technique or methodology set aside, education remains a crucial site for the production and struggle over those pedagogical and political conditions that provide the possibilities for people to develop forms of agency that enable them individually and collectively to intervene in the processes through which the material relations of power shape the meaning and practices of their everyday lives. Within the current historical context, struggles over power take on a symbolic and discursive as well as a material and institutional form. The struggle over education is about more than the struggle over meaning and identity; it is also about how meaning, knowledge, and values are produced, authorized, and made operational within economic and structural relations of power. Education is not at odds with politics; it is an important and crucial element in any definition of the political and offers not only the theoretical tools for a systematic critique of authoritarianism but also a language of possibility for creating actual movements for democratic social change and a new biopolitics that affirms life rather than death, shared responsibility rather than shared fears, and engaged citizenship rather than the stripped-down values of consumerism. At stake here is combining symbolic forms and processes conducive to democratization with broader social contexts and the institutional formations of power itself. The key point here is to understand and engage educational and pedagogical practices from the point of view of how they are bound up with larger relations of power. Educators, students, and parents need to be clearer about how power works through and in texts, representations, and discourses, while at the same time recognizing that power cannot be limited to the study of representations and discourses, even at the level of public policy. Changing consciousness is not the same as altering the institutional basis of oppression; at the same time, institutional reform cannot take place without a change in consciousness capable of recognizing not only injustice but also the very possibility for reform, the capacity to reinvent the conditions [End Page 176] and practices that make a more just future possible. In addition, it is crucial to raise questions about the relationship between pedagogy and civic culture, on the one hand, and what it takes for individuals and social groups to believe that they have any responsibility whatsoever even to address the realities of class, race, gender, and other specific forms of domination, on the other hand. For too long, the progressives have ignored that the strategic dimension of politics is inextricably connected to questions of critical education and pedagogy, to what it means to acknowledge that education is always tangled up with power, ideologies, values, and the acquisition of both particular forms of agency and specific visions of the future. The primacy of critical pedagogy to politics, social change, and the radical imagination in such dark times is dramatically captured by the internationally renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. He writes, Adverse odds may be overwhelming, and yet a democratic (or, as Cornelius Castoriadis would say, an autonomous) society knows of no substitute for education and self-education as a means to influence the turn of events that can be squared with its own nature, while that nature cannot be preserved for long without "critical pedagogy"—an education sharpening its critical edge, "making society feel guilty" and "stirring things up" through stirring human consciences. The fates of freedom, of democracy that makes it possible while being made possible by it, and of education that breeds dissatisfaction with the level of both freedom and democracy achieved thus far, are inextricably connected and not to be detached from one another. One may view that intimate connection as another specimen of a vicious circle—but it is within that circle that human hopes and the chances of humanity are inscribed, and can be nowhere else.

Capitalism Good – Space

Capitalism is key to space exploration and development

Blundell 4, director general of the Institute for Economic Affairs, (John, “Mission to Mars must go private to succeed,” February 2, http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=news&ID=166)

What we need is capitalists in space. Capitalism needs property rights, enforcement of contracts and the rule of law. The ideological tussle does not cease once we are beyond the ionosphere. With the exception of Arthur C Clarke, none of us imagined the entertainment potential from satellites. Geostationary lumps of electronic gadgetry beam us our BSkyB television pictures. I remain in awe that Rupert Murdoch can place a device in the skies above Brazil that sends a signal to every home in each hemisphere. Who could have foreseen that mobile phones could keep us chattering without any wiring, or that global position techniques could plot where we all are to within a metre? These are business applications. Business is already in space. Markets detect and apply opportunities that are not envisaged by even the most accomplished technicians. I’m not saying Murdoch has special competences. I imagine he is as baffled by digital miracles as I am. The point is that companies define and refine what public bodies cannot achieve. Lift the veil of course and all those satellite firms are an intricate web of experts supplying ideas and services. We have an infant space market. What use will the Moon be? Is there value on Mars other than the TV rights? The answer is nobody can know. We can only make some guesses. The Spanish ships that set off for the US thought they would get to India. The Portuguese knew they’d reach China. The English followed them westwards seeking gold. In fact, they got tobacco. Events always confound expectations. The arguments for putting men on Mars are expressly vague from President Bush. Perhaps he was really bidding for votes. From my reading the best results may be medical. Zero, or low, gravity techniques may allow therapies of which we are ignorant. It seems facetious to suggest tourism may be a big part of space opportunity but as both the North and South poles are over-populated and there is a queue at the top of Mount Everest, a trip to the Sea of Tranquility may prove a magnet for the wealthy. Instead of NASA’s grotesque bureaucracy it may be Thomas Cook will be a greater force for exploration. NASA could be a procurement body. It need not design and run all space ventures. It could sub-contract far more extensively. Without specialised engineering expertise it is not easy to criticise projects such as the shuttle. It seems to be excessively costly and far too fragile. There are private space entrepreneurs already. They are tiddlers up against the mighty NASA. Yet Dan Goldin, the NASA leader, says he favours the privatisation of space: "We can’t afford to do solar system exploration until we turn these activities over to the cutting edge private sector..."Some may say that commercialising portions of NASA’s functions is heresy. Others may think we are taking a path that will ruin the wonders of space. I believe that when NASA can creatively partner, all of humankind will reap the benefits of access to open space". Is it possible the Moon has a more noble future than merely a branch office of NASA? Is it tolerable that Mars could be a subsidiary of the USA? Could it be nominally a further state of the union? These are not silly questions. In time space will be defined by lawyers and accountants as property rights will need to be deliberated. One possibility may be that both environments are so hostile that Mars and the Moon will never be more than token pockets for humanity. On the evidence so far it is the orbiting satellites that have made us see the Earth through new eyes. We can survey and explore the planet better from 200 miles up than stomping on the surface. The emerging commercial body of space law is derived from telecommunications law. It is perplexing and contrary to our immediate senses. How can you own or exchange something as intangible as digital messages bouncing off satellites? Yet we all pay our mobile phone bills. Many of the business results of space exploration are unintended consequences of NASA’s early adventures. Computer development would probably have been slower but for the need for instrumentation for Apollo. Are there prospects for Scottish firms in space? The prizes will not go to only the mega corporations. Perhaps Dobbies, the Edinburgh garden centre group, can create new roses by placing pots beyond gravity. Edinburgh University laboratories, or rather their commercial spin offs, could patent new medicines. Is it possible the genetic magicians at the Bush could hitch a ride into space and extend their discoveries? NASA is a monopolist. All monopolies are bad for business. They only stunt opportunities. They blunt alternatives. By opening space to entrepreneurship we will be starting on what FA Hayek memorably describes as "a discovery procedure". Science is an open system. So is capitalism.