Narrow topics are not synonymous with lists and are best when the Aff is limited in flexibility with relation to the topic mechanism but has a deep enough base of literature to innovate in terms of advantages/angles.
I 100% agree with this. But we diverge on the issue of topic specific generics. I get that your goal is to produce 3-5 cases to incentivize the negative to work on case specific research. My perspective is that without a core controversy negatives will inevitably go for super-generic process CPs with politics much more often than they would on a topic with a stable controversy. I use the example of treaties good/bad because other threads have already highlighted the high probability of process cps based on the history of the first treaties topic.
Some "small" topics are not as good as others. I doubt that many people would post defending Courts apart from the unique nature of learning about a legal topic. However, Courts would have been just as bad or worse if the Aff had been constrained by "overrule" but allow to select more than 4 cases to discuss. The Neg would have been less prepared and even *more* willing to abandon specific strategies in favor of generics like Amendment or Distinguish.
The problem with courts highlights exactly what I'm talking about: Courts had no unified controversy with solid literature on both sides. There is no ongoing legal debate about whether or not the current court should up and decide to overrule a bunch of cases or not. Had the topic been limited to desegregation cases or, hell, even just race cases, then perhaps there would have been a core controversy about the court needing to overrule bad case law to adopt a new social justice perspective. As it was, we had no core negative ground, only 4 unrelated areas. As a result, we got the Court Politics DA as our generic overrule bad da. What a terrific waste of time that was.
Still, current debate *practice* suggest we err toward the narrow. Specific engagement makes for the best debates. Given the predominance of "Neg case", specific engagement occurs *only* when the Neg chooses it. The way to encourage Negs to make that choice is to assure a degree of relative preparation, and that is best achieved when the topic seems manageable to research in a case-by-case manner.
Yes, specific engagement occurs only when the neg chooses it. I really see no reason to believe they choose it more when the topic is 3-5 unrelated treaties versus a strong central mechanism that has great literature for both the aff and the neg. I'll walk through this logic with you - If there are less aff cases, then it's easier for the negative to produce case specific research, therefore they will presumably decide that since they can accomplish this, they should do it. Sounds fine, but what's missing here is that 2NRs will have VASTLY different speeches against each of the treaties when the are neg. 2Ns don't like this - they want to reduce uncertainty as much as possible. Without a core generic neg approach, we get 2Ns who inevitably want to go for a politics DA and a process CP. My point is that for education's sake, we ought to have a topic that has intermediary ground - something that allows the neg a core negative approach towards the topic. Some generic CP options that may actually have topic specific net benefits. Sanctions had this, nukes had this, the environment topic in the 90s had this, good topics center around controversies.
Narrowing the topic cuts both ways - the narrower it gets for the aff (especially on list topics), the harder it is for the neg to do anything but read politics, process cp, and case takeouts.
Adam, your comment about "treaties bad" hits the point. The lack of generic ground is what makes the topic potentially *great*. Debates could be about the CTBT, the ICC, LOST, etc., and NOT about questions that demonstrate less specific engagement like whether or not the U.S. should be generally unilateralist. Of course, this depends on a topic that is relatively narrow (3, 5, or 7 treaties), but that is a choice we can collectively make.
This part really makes no sense to me at all. Lack of generic ground will not make this topic great. Your premise is that lack of core negative approach to the topic means negs are "forced" (although you euphemistically call it incentivized) into case debates. To that, I say no way. I think you are assigning far too much credibility to the internal link between topic size and neg strategic choices. Just like critical aff teams who don't want to debate the topic, neg teams that want to read process CPs and politics will do exactly that, topic be damned. I think this is MUCH more likely on a topic without unified negative ground. I am confident that if the sanctions topic had not required the aff to eliminate sanctions or if the agriculture topic had not required the aff to reduce/eliminate subsidies, the negative teams would have gone FURTHER from the case debate to get their process cps and politics da. Providing a controversial, contestable mechanism means the case debates dovetail with the general approaches the negs may take, making the case debate more inviting (or incentivized if you prefer). Tax reform, Arab Spring, Education - these topics all have clear controversies where the negative has a unified approach.
Lastly, I'll add that I think teams that want to debate the case will do so, regardless of topic. But I think we have more ability to influence the type and nature of off case arguments by virtue of how solid a debate the literature supports for the core mechanism of the topic. This is just one more reason why I think a topic like treaties, which is really a list of affs, is worse than several of the papers written this year.
