Counterplans

CPs

A common negative strategy is to introduce a counter-proposal into the debate, called a “counterplan” (CP).  Normally, the affirmative reads a plan advocating that a specific policy be passed, and the negative defends that the status quo is net better than the affirmative.  However, when the negative introduces a counterplan, the debate shifts to whether the CP is better or worse than the plan.  This might seem unnecessarily complicated, but can provide great strategic benefit.  Often, the status quo is just bad: government policies are pretty messed up.  Against an AFF that defends a plan saying the United States federal government ought to provide jobs to formerly incarcerated people, the negative’s position is far strengthened when they propose a different way to check back against recidivism and stigmatization than to try to argue that a minor harm to the economy outweighs structural racism.  The CP can be thought of as sopping up AFF offense --- voting NEG doesn’t foreclose the possibility of solving the plan’s impacts because they can be solved in a different way while avoiding the disadvantage to the affirmative (a net benefit to the counterplan).  Importantly, a counterplan by itself is often not enough to vote negative; there must be a “net-benefit,” or reason why the world of the counterplan is better.  This comes in two forms: a disadvantage (external net-benefit) or internal net-benefit.  A disadvantage is a reason why the plan is bad that the counterplan avoids.  For example, a negative strategy against a plan to reduce intellectual property protections for medicine as a way to solve disease might include: a disadvantage about reducing intellectual property protections for medicines ceding important technology to China which destroys US hegemony and a counterplan to increase monitoring and tracking of disease outbreaks.  The disease counterplan makes the AFF offense negligible since the world of the counterplan solves the same as the plan, but it avoids the disadvantage that is specific to intellectual property, so the world of the negative is net better.  The other method of garnering offense is through an internal net-benefit.  Very similar to a disadvantage, an internal net-benefit is an independent reason the counterplan is good.  For example, say there’s a plan that uses Congress to pass a policy about a living wage.  The negative could read a counterplan that says a living wage should be passed through an executive order instead of through Congress, with an argument that says this creates precedent for more executive flexibility, and executive flexibility is key to respond to a variety of existential threats.  While this is not exactly a disadvantage to doing the affirmative, it is a reason why the counter-plan is net better, hence, net benefit.

Common Types

There a few common types of counter-plans in debate.

Plan-inclusive counterplans (PICs) --- these types of counter-plans advocate for the majority the plan except for a small modification.  For example, a PIC against a plan that says the United States federal government ought to recognize the unconditional right of workers to strike would say: CP --- the United States federal government ought to recognize the unconditional right of workers to strike except for police.  The PIC would have an internal net-benefit saying that police use strikes to enact racist policies.  This type of counter-plan is very strategic because it makes it very hard for the aff to leverage offense because CP is advocating for the entirety of the 1AC except for one little part.

Advantage counterplans --- advantage CPs attempt to solve an advantage from the affirmative.  These counterplans are often not mutually exclusive, but instead compete based off of a disadvantage to doing the affirmative, and their sole purpose is to reduce aff offense.  For example, against a plan for the US and China to eliminate their nuclear weapons with an advantage about communications vulnerabilities creating the possibility for miscalculation, an advantage counterplan might propose hotlines between the US and China.  Hotlines are basically communication lines that can be used to deescalate a crisis and prevent miscalculation.  This counterplan solves for the affirmative’s advantage, hence, advantage counterplan.

Process counterplans --- process CPs advocate for implementing the affirmative’s plan through a different mechanism.  An example would be a plan that legalizes marijuana at the federal level, versus a counterplan to legalize marijuana at the state level.

Consult counterplans --- consult CPs say that the actor the plan should consult another country, group, or international mechanism.  Common consult counterplans include: consult the EU, consult NATO, and consult the ICJ.

Delay counterplans --- delay CPs advocate for passing the plan at a later point in time, often with net-benefits about something happening in the status quo that is bad.

Agent counterplans --- agent CPs are very similar to process CPs, and say that a different agent should implement the plan.  For example, if there’s a plan about the president passing an executive order to provide a living wage, an agent counterplan would say that the Supreme Court should instead create a precedent to raise the living wage.

Uniqueness counterplans --- uniqueness CPs are a little more complicated.  A uniqueness counterplan generates uniqueness for a disadvantage (similar to what the alternative does in a kritik).  For example, if the affirmative proposes a plan to ban lethal autonomous weapons, the negative might read a disadvantage about lethal autonomous weapons being key to US hegemony.  However, the uniqueness for this disadvantage (that the US currently has a lead in autonomous weapon development) might not be true, so the negative can counterplan to increase funding and investment in lethal autonomous weapon tech.

Responses

When responding to a counterplan, there’s a handy acronym, POST, that covers all the necessary components.  POST stands for:

P - permutation

O - offense

S - solvency deficit

T - theory

Permutations

One of the integral parts of a counterplan is “competition.”  There is no offense from a counterplan if it can be combined with the affirmative, because the two strategies are mutually compatible.  A permutation tests this by making an argument that the plan can be combined with the counterplan.  Importantly, the affirmative must make an argument that the permutation shields the link to the net benefit, meaning that the combination of the plan and the counterplan is able to resolve the disadvantage or net benefit from the counterplan.  For example, if the affirmative reads a plan about the US federal government legalizing marijuana, and the negative reads a CP that state governments should legalize marijuana with a disadvantage about how federal marijuana legalization now will hurt Democratic chances in the midterm elections, and Democratic control is key to passing climate policy, the affirmative must then make an argument for how a permutation avoids the DA.  This could be done by saying “permutation do both --- shields the link because state governments passing the plan means blowback isn’t attributed to Congress because they look like they’re just following on to what their constituents want.”

There are a few common types of permutations (perms):

Perm - do both: this permutation is very simple, saying that the best course of action is to enact both the plan and the permutation together.

Perm - do the counterplan:

Theoretical objections to types of permutations