Kappeler

Michigan 2006 Elliot
7 Week Seniors Kappler

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KAPPLER INDEX
index ............................................................................................................................................................... 1
NOTES (PLEASE READ)............................................................................................................................ 2
lnc ...................................................................................................................................................................3
LINKS
link: identity politlcs
. . ...................................................................................................................................... 7
link: utilitarianism ........................................................................................................................................8
link: realism ................................................................................................................................................. 9
IMPACTS
impact: violence ........................................................................................................................................10
impact: endless slaughter ............................................................................................................................ 11
FRAMEWORK
framework defense ......................................................................................................................................12
framework defense ........................................‘.......................................*....*....................................*.*.... 1 3
framework defense ......................................................................................................................................14
ALTERNATIVE DEFENSE
at: alternative is inaction ............................................................................................................................ 15
at: individual change too insignificant to solve ......................................................................................... 16
at: violence overwhlems alternative ........................................................................................................... 17
MISC .
at: ethical obligation to act .........................................................................................................................18
indict: mearsheimer .................................................................................................................................... 19
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NOTES
This file is best used as a supplement to other Ks. It's core claims that the state displaces personal
responsibility and that we need to consider our individual roles in creating oppressive institutions (such
as the military) are compatible with everything from militarism to development to global/local. The
alternative of investigating our personal role in creating violence is good-the cards are better than
average for alternative/framework cards. So, it is worth highlighting this file even if you will not run it
alone.
If I run this alone, what should it be against? This file could be used alone-particularly against an
aff that claims an ethics/social change type advantage. For instance, if they claim to uphold the
obligation to the other or if they claim to solve homophobia or racism or patriarchy, it seems easy to
frame those as personalhehavioral choices so the alternative seems fairly logical and the argument
turns the case well.
It can also be a K of fiat You can run this as a K of fiat against any aff if you want to do some heavy
lifting on framework. This would require adding framework ev to the 1NC.
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1NC
The affirmative cedes the political sphere by asking: "what should the government do?" This focus
on mega-spheres of action eclipses questions of what we would do if we were simply ourselves. This
kills political activism- inculcating a spectator mentality and preventing change.
Kappeler 95 (Susanne, Associate Professor at Al-Akhawayn University, The Will to Violence: The politics
of personal behavior, Pg. 10- 1 1 )
Yet our insight that indeed we are not responsible for the decisions of a Serbian general or a Croatian
president tends to mislead us into thinking that therefore we have no responsibiiitv at all, not evenfor
forming our own judgment, and thus into underrating the responsibility we do have within our own sphere
of action. In particular, it seems to absolve us from having to try to see any relation between our own
actions and those events, or to recognize the connections between those political decisions and our own
personal decisions. It not only shows that we participate in what Beck calls 'organized irresponsibility',
upholding the apparent lack of connection between bureaucratically, institutionally, nationally, and also
individually organized separate competences. It also proves the phenomenal and unquestioned alliance of
our personal thinking with the thinking of the major power mongers, F o r x t e n d to think that we cannot
'do' anvthing. say, about a war, because we deem ourselves to be in the wrong situation because we are not
where the maior decisions are made. Which is why many of those not vet entirelv disillusioned with
politics tend to engage in a form of mental deputy politics, in the style of 'what would I do if I were the
general, the prime minister, the president, the foreign minister or the minister of defense?' Since we seem
to regard their meca spheres of action as the only worthwhile and truly effective ones, and since our
political analyses tend to dwell there first of all, any question of what I would do if 1 were indeed myself
tends to peter out in the comparative insignificance of having what is perceived as 'virtually no
possibilities': what I could do seems petty and futile. For my own action I obviously desire the range of
action of a general, a prime minister, or a General Secretary of the UN - finding expression in ever more
prevalent formulations like 'I want to stop this war', 'I want military intervention', 'I want to stop this
backlash', or 'I want a moral revolution. 'We are this war', however, even if we do not command the troops
or participate in co-called peace talks, namely as Drakulic says, in our non-comprehension': our willed
refusal to feel responsible for our own thinking and for working out our own understanding, preferring
innocently to drift along the ideolo~icalcurrent of prefabricated arguments or less than innocently taking
advantage of the advantages these offer. And we 'are' the war in our 'unconscious cruelty towards vou',
our tolerance of the 'fact that vou have a yellow form for refugees and I don't'- our readiness, in other
words, to build identities, one for ourselves and one for refugees, one of our own and one for the 'others.'
We share in the responsibilitv for this war and its violence in the way we let them grow inside us, that is,&
the wav we shaue 'our feelings, our relationships, our values' according: to the structures and the values of
war and violence.
Page 4
Blaming cultural or structural causes for violence absolves people of individual responsibility and makes
the problem worse.
of personal behavior, Pg.2-4)
Violence is perceived as a phenomenon for science to research and for politics to get a grip on. But
violence is not a phenomenon: it is the behavior of people. human action which may be analyzed. What is
missing is an analysis of violcncc as action- not just as acts oi'violence. o r thc cause of its effects, hut as the actions of people in relation to other peoplc
and beings or things.
Feminist critique, as well as other political critiques, has analyzed the preconditions of violence, the unequal powcr relations which enable it
to takc placc. However, under the pressure of mainstream science and a sociological perspective which increasingly dominates our thinking,
becoming: standard to argue as if it were these power relations which cause violence. Underlying is a
behaviorist model which prefers to see human action as the exclusive product of circumstances. ignoring
the personal decision of the agent to act, implying; in turn that circumstances virtually dictate certain forms
of behavior. Even though we would probably not underwrite these propositions in their crass form. there is nevertheless agrowing tendency, not just
in social scicncc, to explain violent behavior by its circumstances. (Comparc thc question, 'Does Pornography cause violence?') Thc circumsta~lces
identitied may differ according to the politics of the explainers. but the mcthod of explanation remains the same. While consideration of mitigating
circumstances has its rightful placc in a coun of law trying (and derending) an offender, this does not automatically make it an adequate or suflicier~t
practice for political analysis. It begs the question. in particular, 'what is considered to be part of the circumstances (and by whom?)' Thus in the case of
sexual offenders, there is a routine search- on the part of the tabloid prcss or the professionals of violence- for expericnccs of violence in the offender's
own past, and understanding which is rapidly solidifying in the scicntitic model of a 'cycle of violence'. That is, the relevant factors are sought in the
distant past and in other contexts of action, while a crucial in the present context is ignored. namcly the agent's decision to act as he did. Even politically
oppositional groups are not immune to this mainstream sociologizing, some lerl groups have tricd to cxplain men's sexual violence as rhe result o f class
oppression, while some black theoreticians havc explained the violence of Black men as the result of racist opprcssion. The
ostensible aim of
these arguments mav be to draw attention to the pervasive and structural violence of classism and racism,
yet thev not oniy fail to combat such ineauality, they actively contribute to it. Although such oppression is
a very real part of an agent's life context, these 'explanations' ignore the fact that not everyone
experiencing the same oppression uses violence, that is, that these circumstances do not 'cause' violent
behavior. They overlook, in other words, t h a t w e m e t r a t o r has decided to violate, even if this decision
was made in circumstances of limited choice. To overlook this decision, however hitself a political
decision, serving particular interests. In the first instance it serves to exonerate the perpetrators, whose
responsibilitv is thus transferred to circumstances and a histow for which other people (who remain beyond
reach) are responsible. Moreover. it hclps to stigmatize all those living in poverty and opprcssion; because they are obvious victims of violence
and oppression, they are held to be potential pcrpctrators themselves. This slanders all the women who have experienced scxual violence, yet d o not use
violcnce against others, and libels those experiencing racist and class oppression, ye1 do not necessarily act our violcncc, Far from supporting those
opprcsscd by classist, racist or sexist oppression, it sells out these cntirc groups in the interest of exonerating individuals mcmbcrs. It is a version of
collective victim-blaming, of stigmatizing entire social strata as potential hotbeds of violence, which rests on and perpetuates the mainstream division of
society into so-called marginal g r o u p s - ~ classic
e clienteles of social work and care politics (and of police repression) - and an implied 'centre' to which
all the speakers. explainers, researchers and carccrs the~iiselvesbelong, and which we are to assume to be a zone of non-violence.
Explaining people's violent behavior by their circutnstances also has the advantage of implying that Ihe 'solution' lics in a change of circumstances. Thus
it has become fashionable among socially minded politicians and intcllectuals in Germany to argue that rising neo-Nazi violence of young pcoplc (mcn),
especially in rormer East Gcrmany, needs to he countered by combating poverty and uncmploymcnt in these areas. Likewise anti-racist groups like thc
Anti-Racist alliance or the Anti-Nazi Leaguc in Britain argue that 'the causes oincism, like poverty and unemployment, should be Packled' and that it is
'problems like unemployment and bad housing which lead to mcism. Besides being no explanation at all of why whitc poverty and unemployment should
lcad specitically to racist violence (and what would explain middle- and upper-class racism), it is more than questionable to combat poverty only (but
precisely) whcn and where violence is exercised. It not only legitimates the violence (by explaining it) but constitutes an
incentive to violence, confirming that social problems will be taken seriously when and where 'thev' attract
attention by means of violence- just as the most unruly children in schools (mostly boys) tend to get more
attention from reachers than well-behaved and quiet children (mostly girls.) Thus if German neo-Nazi
youths and youth groups, since their murderous assaults on refugees and migrants in Hoyerswerda,
Rostock, Dresden etc., are treated to special youth proiects and social care measures (to the tune of DM 20
million per year), including 'educative' trips to Morocco and Israel, u s an unmistakable sign to society
that racist violence does indeed 'pay off.'
Page 5
Surrendering ourselves to the state and abdicating personal responsibility makes extinction
inevitable.
Beres, 94 (Louis Rene, Professor of International Law in the Department of Political Science at Purdue
University, Spring,, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Lexis)
By surrendering ourselves to States and to traditional views of self-determination, we encourage not

immortality but premature and predictable extinction. It is a relationship that can, and must, be more widely
understood. There are great ironies involved. Although the corrosive calculus of ~eopoliticshas now made
possible the deliberate killing of all life, populations all over the planet turn increasingly to States for
securitv. It is the dreadful ingenuity of States that makes vossible death in the billions, but it is in the
expressions of that ingenuity that people seek safety. Indeed, as the threat of nuclear annihilation looms
even after the Cold War, n71 the citizens of conflicting States reaffirm their segmented lovalties, moved by
the persistent unreason that is, after all, the most indelible badge of modern humankind.
Hence, our alternative: reject the affirmatives representations and re-conceive of violence as an issue
of personal choice made by individuals.
This alternative is the best means of resolving violent conflict.

A politics aim in^ at a change in people's behavior would require political work that is very much more
cumbersome and very much less promising of success than is the use of state power and social control. It
would require political consciousness-raising- politicizing the way we think- which cannot be imposed on
others by force or compulsory educational measures. It would require a view of veople which takes
seriously and reckons with their will, both their will to violence or their will to change. To take seriously
the will of others however would mean recognizing one's own, and putting; people's will. including our
own, at the centre of political reflection. A political analysis of violence needs to reco.gnize this will, the
personal decision in favor of violence- not just to describe acts of violence, or the conditions which enable
them to take place, but also W t u r e the moment of decision which is the real im etus for violent action.
For without this decision there will be no violent act, not even in circumstances which potentially permit it.
It is the decision to violate. not just the act itself, which make a person a perpetrator of violence-iust as it is
the decision not to do so which makes veovle not act violently and not abuse their power in a situation
which would nevertheless permit it. This moment of decision, therefore, is also the locus of potential
resistance to violence. To understand the structures of thinking and the criteria by which such decisions are
reached, but above all to regard this decision as an act of choice, seems to me a necessary precondition for
any political struggle against violence and for a non-violent society.
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Finally, we don't defend collective irresponsibility. We think EVERY individual has part in the
violence- but the point is that we need to take responsibility for the one factor we actually control-
ourselves.
of personal behavior, Pg. 10)
We are the war does not mean that the responsibility for a war is shared collectivelv and diffusely by an
entire societv- which would be equivalent to exonerating warlords and politicians and profiteers or, as
Ulrich Beck says, upholding the notion of 'collective irresponsibility', where people are no longer held
responsible for their actions, and where the conception of universal responsibility becomes the equivalent
of a universal acquittal. On the contrary, the object is precisely to analyze the specific and differential
responsibility of everyone in their diverse situations. Decisions to unleash a war are indeed taken at
particular levels of power bv those in a position to make them and to command such collective action. We
need to hold them clearly responsible for their decisions and actions without lessening theirs by any
collective 'assumption' of responsibility. Yet our habit of focusing on the stage where the maior dramas of
power take place tends to obscure our sight in relation to our own sphere of competence, our own power
and our own responsibility- leading to the well-known illusion of our apparent 'powerlessness' and its
accompanying phenomenon, our so-called political disillusionment. Single citizens- even more so those of
other nations- have come to feel secure in their obvious non-responsibility for such large-scale political
events as, say, the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina or Somalia-since the decisions for such events
are always made elsewhere.
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LINK: IDENTITY POLITICS
Identity Politics destroy personal responsibility and reproduce systems of violence and oppression.
The rise of cultural identity ~oliticsin particular has contributed to the view that violence is exclusivelv a
matter of social Dower relations. What feminist analysis has identified as the dialectic between social power
structures and the actions of individuals in specific situations is in danger of becoming conflated in the
simple transfer of social power structures to the identity of individuals. Far from surtportinn members of
oppressed groups in the consciousness of their right to esualit~,identity politics tends to inscribe power and
ineauality. or victim status, respectively in the identitv of persons. The analysis of the behavior of
individuals thus tends to lose in importance in favor of an (exclusive) analysis of social relations and the
identification of our place in the social power hierarchy.
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LINK: UTILITARIANISM
Consequentialist frameworks cause us to abandon responsibility for violence and externalize it to

some factor beyond our control.
ofpersonal behavior, Pg.17)
A political rnoralitv could also be derived from the conseauences of action, in terms of the agents'
responsibility for the consequences of their actions. However, the scientific representation of the
consequences of action as mere state of affairs- as factual events- serves to evade such responsibility as
effective as once did mythological representations of destiny as preordained. For if we detach the act from
the person acting and renard its consequences as an effect. ~ersonalres~onsibilitvis no longer an issue. On
the contrarv, this effect now calls for the scientific investigation of its cause. The cause, as we have already
seen and shall see again and again, is never found in the res~onsibilitvof consciously acting ~ e o ~ lbut e , in
an array of correlating factors and contributing circumstances which make identifving any oersonal
resoonsibilitv virtually impossible. What is of advantage to the ruling interests of society, however, also has
its attraction for individuals, who thus similarly seek to evade their personal responsibility by means of a
scientific representation of their own actions as the effect of a most complicated set of causes..
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LINK: REALISM
The claim that realism is inevitable is a self-fulfilling prophesy that shuts down alternatives.
Dunmire in 2005 (Patricia, Kent State University, Discourse & Society 16 (4)481-513) In Becornings:
Explorations in Memory, Time and Futures Elizabeth Grosz (1 999) posits that 'to know the future is to
deny it as future, to place it as given, as past' (p. 6).
1 find this statement compelling because it articulates what is at stake in dominant political discourses and
the futures they project. By reminding us of the opposition between 'knowing' and 'futurity' Grosz reminds
us of the intrinsic potentiality of the future and the political importance of understanding the future not as
the inevitable progression of the past and present but as a real site of change and possibility. Moreover,
Grosz contends that claims to knowledge of the future produced through dominant political discourses need
to be understood in terms of their ideoloaical function of denying our aaencv with respect to the future
while. at the same time, imolicatina us in futures not of our making. That is. political discourses in which
the future is reuresented as already known, as me- determined, can function to 'paralyze political action' bv
undermining the future as a conceotual space for imagining and workina for political and social change
(Levitas, 1993). As Grosz (1999) explains, such determinism 'annihilates any future uncontained in the past
and present' (p. 4). An important task for critical discourse analysis is to reclaim the agency and
potentialities that the future offers for social and political transformation. This task should focus in part on
demonstrating the linguistic and discursive means by which the future is claimed and appropriated by
dominant groups and institutions. In addition, analyses should work to disrupt and challenge these
dominant futures with representations and conceptions of 'antithetical futures . . . waiting
for syntactic articulation' and material realization' (Hebdige, 1993: 275). In short, we need to reclaim the
future 'as a virtual space - blank, colourless, shapeless, a space to be made over, a space where everything
is still to be won.'
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IMPACT: VIOLENCE
We are the violence when we ignore our own responsibility and permit violence it to happen. Our
everyday actions and thoughts are part of the violence that is ubiquitous.
of personal behavior, Pg.9)
War does not suddenly break out in a ueaceful societv; sexual violence is not the disturbance of otherwise
equal gender relations. Racist attacks do not shoot like lightning out of a non-racist sky, and the sexual
exploitation of children is no solitary problem in a world otherwise just to children. The violence of our
most commonsense everyday thinking;, and especiallv our personal will to violence, constitute the
conceptual preparation, the ideological armament and the intellectual mobilization which make the
;outbreak' of war, of sexual violence, of racist attacks, of murder and destruction possible at all. 'We are
the war', writes Slavenka Drakulic at the end of her existential analysis at the end of her existential analysis
of the question, 'what is war?': I do not know what war is, I want to tell [my friend], but I see it
everywhere. It is in the blood-soaked street in Sarajevo, after 20 people have been killed while they queued
for bread. But it is also in your non-comprehension, in my unconscious cruelty towards you, in the fact that
you have a yellow form [for refugees] and I don't, in the way in which it grows inside ourselves and
changes our feelings, relationships, values - in short: us. We are the war...and I am afraid that we cannot
hold anyone else responsible.-We make this war possible, we permit it to happen. -'We are the war'- and
we also 'are' the sexual violence, the racist violence, the exploitation and the will to violence in all its
manifestations in a society in co-called 'peacetime', for we make them possible and we permit them to
happen.
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IMPACT: ENDLESS SLAUGHTER

Ceding politics to the state creates the idea of the State as sacred - resulting in endless slaughter.
Beres, 94 (Louis Rene, Professor of International Law in the Department of Political Science at Purdue
University, Spring,, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Lexis)
The State vresents itself as sacred. The idea of the State as sacred is met with horror and indignation,
especially in the democratic, secular West, but this notion is indisputable. Throughout much of the
contemporary world, the expectations of government are always cast in terms of religious obligation. And
in those places where the peremptory claims of faith are in conflict with such expectations, it is the latter
that invariably prevail. With States as the new gods, the profane has become not onlv permissible, it is now
altoaether sacred. Consider the changing place of the State in world affairs. Although it has long been
observed that States must continually search for an improved power position as a practical matter, the
sacralization of the State is a development of modem times. This sacralization, representing a break from
the traditional [*20] political realism of Thucydides, n57 Thrasymachus n58 and Machiavelli, n59 was
fully developed in Germany. From Fichte 1160 and Hegel, through Ranke and von Treitschke, n6 1 the
modern transformation of Realpolitik has led the planet to its current problematic rendezvous with self-
determination. Rationalist philosophy derived the idea of national sovereignty from the notion of individual
liberty, but cast in its modem, post-seventeenth century expression, the idea has normally prohibited
intervention n62 and acted to oppose human dignity and human rights. 1163 Left to develop on its
continuous flight from reason, the legacy of unrestrained nationalism can only be endless loathing and
slaughter. Ultimately, as Lewis Mumford has observed, all human enereies will be placed at the disposal of
a murderous "megamachine" with whose advent we will all be drawn unsparinnlv into a "dreadful
ceremonv" of worldwide sacrifice. The State that commits itself to mass butchery does not intend to do
evil. Rather, according to Hegel's description in the Philosophy of Right, "the State is the actualitv of the
ethical Idea." It commits itself to death for the sake of life, prodding killing with conviction and pure heart.
A sanctified killer, the State that accepts Realpolitik generates an incessant search for victims. Though
mired in blood, the search is tranquil and self-assured, born of the knowledge that the State's deeds are
neither infamous nor shameful, but heroic. n65 With Hegel's characterization of the State as "the march of
God in the world," John Locke's notion of a Social Contract -- the notion upon which the United States was
founded n66 -- is fully disposed of, relegated to the ash heap of history. While the purpose of the State, for
Locke, is to provide protection that is otherwise unavailable to individuals -- the "preservation of their
lives, liberties and States" -- for Hegel, the State stands above any private interests. It is the spirit of the
State, Volksgeist, rather than of individuals, that is the presumed creator of advanced civilization. And it is
in war, rather than in peace, that a State is judged to demonstrate its true worth and potential. How easily
humankind still gives itself to the new gods. Promised relief from the most terrifying of possibilities --
death and disannearance -- our species regularlv surrenders itself to formal structures of power and
immunity. Ironically, such surrender brings about an enlargement of the very terrors that created the new
gods in the first place, but we surrender nonetheless. In the words of William Reich, we lay waste to
ourselves by embracing the "political plague-mongers." a necrophilous partnershiu that promises purity and
vitality through the killing of "outsiders."
Page 12
FRAMEWORK DEFENSE
The affirmative has to justify their representations, not just the specifics of their policy. Methodological
questions are a prerequisite to solvency, real world activism, and effective policy discussion.
Bartlett '90 (Katharine T. Professor of Law @ Duke University, Feminist Legal Methods, Harvard
Law Review, February)
Feminists have developed extensive critiques of law n2 and proposals for legal reform. n3 Feminists have
had much less to say, however, about what the "doing" of law should entail and what truth status to give to
the legal claims that follow. These methodological issues matter because methods shape one's view of the
possibilities for legal practice and reform. Method "organizes the apprehension of truth; it determines what
counts as evidence and defines what is taken as verification." n4 Feminists cannot ignore method, because
if thev seek to challenge existing structures of power with the same methods that have defined what counts
within those structures, they may instead "recreate the illegitimate power structures lthat thev are1 trying to
identify and undermine." Method matters also because without an understanding of feminist methods,
feminist claims in the law will not be perceived as legitimate or "correct." I suspect that many who dismiss
feminism as trivial or inconsequential misunderstand it. Feminists have tended to focus on defending their
various substantive positions or political agendas, even among themselves. Greater attention to issues of
method may help to anchor these defenses, to explain why feminist agendas often appear so radical (or not
radical enough), and even to establish some common ground among feminists.
As feminists articulate their methods, they can become more aware of the nature of what they do, and thus
do it better. Thinking about method is empowering. When I reauire myself to explain what I do, I am likelv
to discover how to improve what I earlier may have taken for granted. In the process, I am likely to become
more committed to what it is that I have improved. This likelihood, at least, is a central premise of this
Article and its primary motivation.
The dichotomy of policy action vs personal inaction destroys agency and denies the way in which
action can make things worse.
of personal behavior,Pg.11-12)
Rather, the binary opposition of 'action and 'no action' seems to serve the simple evaluation of the good
and the bad. We speak of being 'active' or wanting to be active again, where being active in its simply
vacuity is 'good', 'doing nothing' is rather bad, and where the quality of the action seems secondary to the
fact of action as such. Quite the reverse, however, if we analyze the past; there, having 'done' anything
bears the danger of it having been bad, since the results are available for analysis. Consequently, analyses
of the vast tend to feature an abundance of victims, who as victims cannot by definition have done
anvthinp, and therefore cannot either be 'guilty'. While descri~tionsof our future actions are thus
distinguished by their vacuity- saying nothing about the kind of activity and explaining nothing about its
purpose- the mst on the contrary seems to CN out for the writing of histories that explain everything. In
these rewritings of history as iustification, the mark of distinction for personal identity is no longer to have
'been active', but on the contrary, to have been the passive victim- if not of actual deeds by others, at least
of circumstances. In other words, in the past we tend to have been passive, while in the future we may
become active. The present, however, is the eternal present in which we inhabit states of being, our
identity.
Page 13
FRAMEWORK DEFENSE
Representationsare a priori to all other issues including meaningful policy discussion- they are the
underlying justification for the affirmative.
Doty 96, [Roxanne Lynn, assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University, Imperial
Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations, p. 4-61
The question of representation has historically been excluded from the academic studv of international
relations. This exclusion has, to an important degree, shaped the horizons of the discipline, This has been
especially significant when it comes to North-South relations because in an important sense this whole
subfield revolves around the differences between these two entities. Sometimes these differences are
represented in primarily economic terms (e.g., levels of development), and sometimes in terms of military
power differentials. Representations of economic and military power differences, however, take place
within political and social circumstances in which other kinds of differences are explicitly or implicitly
presumed. Because the question of representation has been excluded, the historical construction and
consequences of these differences have not been considered legitimate realms of inquiry. This exclusion
has in many instances resulted in the complicity of international relations scholarship with particular
constructions of the South and of the "reality" of the South's place in international relations. This study
begins with the premise that representation is an inherent and important aspect of global political life and
therefore a critical and legitimate area of inquiry. International relations are inextricably bound uv with
discursive practices that put into circulation representations that are taken as "truth." The goal of analyzing
these practices is not to reveal essential truths that have been obscured, but rather to examine how certain
representations underlie the production of knowledge and identities and how these representations make
various courses of action possible. As Said (1979: 21) notes, there is no such thing as a delivered presence,
but there is a re-presence, or representation. Such an assertion does not deny the existence of the material
world, but rarher suggests that material obiects and subiects are constituted as such within discourse. So, for
example, when U.S. troops march into Grenada, this is certainlv "real," though the march of the troops
across a piece of geographic space is in itself sin~ularlyuninteresting and socially irrelevant outside of the
representations that produce meaning. It is only when "American ' is attached to the troops and "Grenada"
7
to the geographic space that meaning is created. What the physical behavior itself is, though, is still far
from certain until discursive practices constitute it as an "invasion," a "show of force," a "training
exercise," a "rescue," and so on. What is "really" going on in such a situation is inextricably linked to the
discourse within which it is located. To attempt a neat separation between discursive and nondiscursive
practices, understanding the former as purely linguistic, assumes a series of dichotomies - thoughtlreality,
appearancelessence, mind/matter, wordworld, subjectivelobjective - that a critical genealogy calls into
question. Against this, the perspective taken here affirms the material and performative character of
discourse. In suggesting that global politics, and specifically the aspect that has to do with relations
between the North and the South, is linked to representational practices I am suggesting that the issues and
concerns that constitute these relations occur within a "reality" whose content has for the most part been
defined by the representational practices of the "first world." Focusing on discursive practices enables one
to examine how the processes that produce "truth" and "knowledge" work and how they are articulated
with the exercise of political, military, and economic power.
Page 14
FRAMEWORK D E E N S E
The policymaking paradigm over-simplifies issues and casts problems in ways that fit within pre-
ordained solutions-this results in serial policy failure.
Dillon and Reid, in 2000 (Michael and Julian, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the
University of Lancaster, GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, LIBERAL PEACE, AND COMPLEX EMERGENCY,
Alternatives: Social Transformation & Humane Governance, Jan-Mar2000, Vol. 25, Issue I)
More specifically, where there is a policy problematic there is expertise, and where there is expertise there,
too, a policy problematic will emerge. Such problematics are detailed and elaborated in terms of
discreteforms of knowledge as well as interlocking policy domains. Policy domains reifv the
problematization of life in certain ways by turning these epistemically and politically contestable orderings
of life into "problems" that require the continuous attention of policy science and the continuous resolutions
of policymakers. Policy "actors" develop and compete on the basis of the expertise that mows up around
such problems or clusters of problems and their client populations. Here, too, we may also discover what
might be called "epistemic entrepreneurs." Albeit the market for discourse is prescribed and policed in
ways that Foucault indicated, bidding to formulate novel problematizations they seek to "sell" these, or
otherwise have them officially adopted. In principle, there is no limit to the ways in which the management
of population may be problemarized. All aspects of human conduct, any encounter with life, is
problematizable. Any problematization is capable of becoming a policy problem. Governmentalitv thereby
creates a market for policy, for science and for policy science, in which problernatizations go looking for
policv svonsors while policy sponsors fiercely compete on behalf of their favored problernatizations.
Reproblematization of problems is constrained by the institutional and ideological investments surrounding
accepted "problems," and by the sheer difficulty of challenging the inescapable ontological and
epistemological assumptions that go into their very formation. There is nothing so fiercely contested as an
epistemological or ontological assumption. And there is nothing so fiercely ridiculed as the suggestion that
the real problem with problematizations exists precisely at the level of such assumptions. Such-"paralysis of
analysis" is precisely what volicvmakers seek to avoid since they are cornuelled constantly to respond to
circumstances over which they ordinarily have in fact both more and less control than they proclaim. What
they do not have is precisely-the control that they want. Yet serial policy failure--the fate and the fuel of all
policy--compels them into a continuous search for the new analysis-that will extract them from the aporias
in which they constantly find themselves enmeshed Serial policy failure is no simple shortcoming that
science and volicv--and policy science--will ultimately overcome. Serial policy failure is rooted in the
ontolorrical and e~istemologicalassumptions that fashion the ways in which global governance encounters
and problematizes life as a process of emergence through fitness landscapes that constantly adaptive and
changing ensembles have continuously to negotiate. As a particular kind of intervention into life, global
governance promotes the very changes and unintended outcomes that it then seriallv reproblematizes in
terms of policy failure. Thus, global liberal governance is not a linear problem-solvine, process committed
to the resolution of obiective policy problems simply by bringing better information and knowledge to bear
upon them. A nonlinear economy of power/knowledge, it deliberatelv installs socially specific and radically
inequitable distributions of wealth, opportunity, and mortal danger both locally and globally through the
verv detailed ways in which life is variously (policy) problematized bv it. In consequence, thinking and
acting politically is displaced by the institutional and epistemic rivalries that infuse its power/ knowledge
networks, and bv the local conditions of application that govern the introduction of their policies. These
now threaten to exhaust what "politics," locally as well as globally, is about.[36] It is here that the
"emergence" characteristic of governance begins to make its appearance. For it is increasingly recognized
that there are no definitive policy solutions to obiective, neat, discrete policy problems. The "subjects" of
policy increasingly also become a matter of definition as well, since the concept population does not have a
stable referent either-and has itself also evolved in biophilosophica1 and biomolecular as well as
Foucauldian "biopower" ways.
7 Week Seniors Kappier
Page 15
AT: ALTERNATIVE IS INACTION
The affirmative's demand for action is a link- realistic politics must move beyond the demand to be
for or against specific actions, and instead analyze the way we represent the world.
A realist politics- that is, a politics which refers to reality- has to start from the present conditions and their
changeability. It is the critical analvsis of present conditions, rather than any utopian vision of the future,
which will indicate the direction and the possibilities of change. This would mean a politics, however,
which goes beyond being 'for' or 'against' something, and a comprehension of reality that is gained from
analysis rather than automatic (ideological') perception of it. If politicians and the media increasingly offer
'analyses' conforming to the scheme of a folk tale or Hollywood western, with their figures of good and
bad guys, this is no reason for a critical opposition to use the same scheme with at most an inverted cast.
Rather, we should aim to expose the ideological construction of these narratives and mythologies and
analyze their influence also on our own thinking.
The Affirmative conceives of politics as action verses personal inaction. This framework allows us to
abdicate responsibility for the way in which our everyday actions produce violence.
of personal behavior, Pg. 11- 12)
So if we move beyond the usual frame of violence, towards the structures of thought employed in decisions
to act, this also means making an analysis of action. This seems all the more urgent as action seems barely
to be perceived any longer. Thcre is talk of the government doing 'nothing', of its 'inaction', of the need
for action, the time for action, the need for strategies, our inability to act as well as our desire to become
'active' again. We seem to deem ourselves in a kind of action vacuum which, like the cosmic black hole,
tends to consume any renewed effort only to increase its size. Hence this is also an attempt to shift the
focus again to the fact that we are continuallv actinn and doing, and that there is no such thing as not acting
or doing nothing.
Page 16
AT: INDIVIDUAL CHANGE TOO INSIGNIFICANT TO SOLVE
We must view politics as an issue of persona choice because even if we can't transform the world, it is
the starting point for larger political movements.
Political action, in this view, is not something which wili take d a c e only in a more uropitious future when
circumstances have changed to much, or a revolution is already so far underway that it can take its course,
and we as the 'politically active' people can join it. Nor can political action mean something we engage in
only on condition that there will be enough others, or better, masses of them, who think as I do, and do
what E wan1 to do. Political action does not necessarily imply public mass actions whose massiveness will
guarantee their success. For such individual conceptions of volitical mass action reflect the Dower thinking
of generals commanding the troovs of the 'masses' to suit their own strategies. Nor does it helv to wish for
the masses voluntarily to think as I do and to want what I want- that they be like-minded (like me). thus
helping to fulfill my dream of a mass action. Even this has happened in the history of generals. My dream
remains the dream of a commander who has like minded masses of volunteer troops at this disposal.
Instead, we could consider that even our thinking is an opportunity for action, that it can be determined in
this way or that, that it is the first opportunity. the first political situation, in which to exercise political
choice. 'We make the way possible, we allow it to happen', says Drakulic. 'We only have one weak
protection against it, our consciousness. There are no them and us, there are no grand categories, abstract
numbers, black-and-white truths, simple facts. There is only us- and yes, we are responsible for each other.
And if we find this too minimal to satisfy our aspirations for political action and chance, why don't we do it
anyway, for a start?
7 Week Seniors Kapplet
Page 17
AT: VIO1,ENCE OVERWHLEMS ALTERNATIVE
People always have a choice- even in the most horrific situations.
Moreover, feminism has produced an analysis-if not of action generally, at any rate of sexual violence-
which not only emphasizes the abuser's will and choice of action, but also uniquely recognizes the
survivor's action of resisting, and in this her will to resist. While violence constitutes precisely the
violator's attempt to reduce his victim's freedom of action to naught- where the ultimate consequence is
indeed her total victimization in death- the survivor's survival means that she has recognized and made use
of her remaining, even if minimal, scope for action. Feminist analysis sees in the survivor not a passive
victim, but a person and agent who has successfully sought to resist. This means recognizing even in her
virtual powerlessness the stilI existing potential for action. Resistance bv definition means actinn in
situations of violence and o ~ ~ r e s s i owhere
n our freedom of action is severely limited and circumscribed.
All the more vital that we recognize what scove for action there is. A11 the more vital, also, that we
recognize how much greater is our scope of action and resistance most of the time. compared to the
extremity of victimization in experiences of life-threatening violence and enslavement- which we invoke
metaphoricallv and all too lightly by claimin2 victim status on account of oppression.
Page 18
AT: ETHICAL OBLIGATION TO ACT
Saying that there is an ethical obligation for the state to act displaces personal responsibility for
ethics.
Even a discourse on ethics which we might expect to address this issue increasine;lv addresses oroblems of
a collective social responsibility- leading indeed to enlightened guidelines for social policy, vet leaving the
questions of personal res~onsibilitvunanswered, For an analysis of collective social responsibility tends not
to differentiate between the respective responsibility of the members of that collective according to their
diverse situations. Yet the single person has to act, has to decide how to act, even if this does not cause a
war or change the world at one stroke. It is these decisions for action within the range of competence of
persons which are the topic of this book.
Page 19
INDICT: MEARSHEIMER
Mearsheimer conducts shoddy research and ignores counter evidence.
Vasquez, '99, (John A., professor of political science at VanderBuilt University, Cambridge University
Press, Power of Power Politics : From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism 302-304)
Second, Mearsheimer's work is important because it clearly and succinctly makes predictions that provide
(before the fact) a body of evidence that is able in principle to falsify or support the underlying heory and
hence, indirectly, the paradigm's view of the world. These predictions, especially about the possibility for
peace, war, and stability, mav constitute (depending on the foreign policy of major states) a ~svcholo~icallv
crucial "real world" test of neorealism. Third, his two articles are important because they expose, despite
their achievements. one of the fatal weaknesses of the realist tradition. Thev represent a mode of
neotraditionalist realist analvsis that goes forth with its theoretical deductions while icnorina evidence,
specifically quantitative evidence, that contradicts its main empirical propositions. The tendency to refine
and sharpen theory in the absence of solid evidence because of policy needs, can lead a theory to become a
doctrine, as happened with nuclear deterrence theory during the 1950s and 1960s. With nuclear deterrence,
however, there simply were no data to examine; with multipolarity, this is not the case. Here, there is a
body of social science evidence that can be sifted to assess Mearsheimer's empirical propositions. And
when this is done, and it will be done here, this body of evidence will stand as an unexplained anomaly for
neorealism and the realist paradigm. The theoretical knowledge that Mearsheimer (1990a) has produced
will be shown to be a multipolar myth. The first part of this appraisal will focus on the evidence and
delineate how Mearsheimer ( I 990a ) failed to deal with it, and how it shows Waltz's and Mearsheimer's
view of multipolaritv to be both misleading and simplistic. This evidence along with some suggestive
findings from peace research will then be used to show that the possibilities of mace among the strongest
maior states in the "multipolar" post-Cold War era are much brighter than Mearsheimer believes. These
"predictions" are intended to provide a future comparative test between the realist paradigm and a
nonrealist issue politics paradigm, as well as showing that there are alternative theories that can. in specific
areas, better explain, predict. and prescribe than the dominant realist variants.

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Michigan 2006 Elliot

7 Week Seniors Kappler

By surrendering ourselves to States and to traditional views of self-determination, we encourage not

This alternative is the best means of resolving violent conflict.

LINK: IDENTITY POLITICS

Consequentialist frameworks cause us to abandon responsibility for violence and externalize it to

IMPACT: ENDLESS SLAUGHTER

AT: ALTERNATIVE IS INACTION

AT: INDIVIDUAL CHANGE TOO INSIGNIFICANT TO SOLVE

AT: VIO1,ENCE OVERWHLEMS ALTERNATIVE

People always have a choice- even in the most horrific situations.

AT: ETHICAL OBLIGATION TO ACT

Mearsheimer conducts shoddy research and ignores counter evidence.

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