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Introduction to Policy Debate

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Counterplans are very popular in debate. At the varsity level of competition, it is almost assumed that the negative will at least advance a counterplan in the 1NC, even if they chose not to go for it as part of a winning strategy in the 2NR. 

The popularity of the counterplan is somewhat self-fulfilling – counterplans are advanced frequently in modern debate because people know a lot about counterplans and people are always thinking in terms of counterplan options when devising negative strategies.

Counterplans are also popular because they are valuable strategic weapons for the negative.  As the discussion of the various types of counterplans makes clear, most counterplans claim to solve all or at least most of the affirmative harms without forcing the negative to engage in a debate about the truth of each of those harms claims. 

While it is true that counterplans are strategic weapons, they are also strategic hinderances. Negative teams may be forced to forgo arguing particular disadvantages because those disadvantages also link to the counterplan.  Different types of counterplans are often theoretically questionable, so the negative may lose the debate because they either have to spend too much time in their speeches on those theory questions or because they may lose the theory debate.  Counterplans are also more complicated than many other arguments, and inexperienced debaters may simply not be able to keep track of all of the different arguments made in counterplan debates.

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