Transforming Debate represents the very best scholarly work published by the International Journal of Forensics. This book opens minds and borders for the scholarly exchange of both the theory and practice of academic debate.

Annotation A leading theorist on sex and gender discusses how hidden assumptions embedded in our culture, social institutions, and individual psyches perpetuate male power and oppress women and sexual minorities. Illustrated.

Though the scientific community largely agrees that climate change is underway, debates about this issue remain fiercely polarized. These conversations have become a rhetorical contest, one where opposing sides try to achieve victory through playing on fear, distrust, and intolerance. At its heart, this split no longer concerns carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, or climate modeling; rather, it is the product of contrasting, deeply entrenched worldviews. This brief examines what causes people to reject or accept the scientific consensus on climate change. Synthesizing evidence from sociology, psychology, and political science, Andrew J. Hoffman lays bare the opposing cultural lenses through which science is interpreted. He then extracts lessons from major cultural shifts in the past to engender a better understanding of the problem and motivate the public to take action. How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate makes a powerful case for a more scientifically literate public, a more socially engaged scientific community, and a more thoughtful mode of public discourse.

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path. In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.

In this book, the authors set forth a new model of globalization that lays claims to supersede existing models, and then use this model to assess the way the processes of globalization have operated in different historic periods in respect to political organization, military globalization, trade, finance, corporate productivity, migration, culture, and the environment. Each of these topics is covered in a chapter which contrasts the contemporary nature of globalization with that of earlier epochs. In mapping the shape and political consequences of globalization, the authors concentrate on six states in advanced capitalist societies (SIACS): the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and Japan. For comparative purposes, other states—particularly those with developing economics—are referred to and discussed where relevant. The book concludes by systematically describing and assessing contemporary globalization, and appraising the implications of globalization for the sovereignty and autonomy of SIACS. It also confronts directly the political fatalism that surrounds much discussion of globalization with a normative agenda that elaborates the possibilities for democratizing and civilizing the unfolding global transformation.

Success in any walk of life is hard to achieve in this razor-edged highly competitive age. Besides knowledge; one has to be well versed in the art of forceful communication; an essential pre-requisite of a qualified man; lack of which renders him unfit for high posts in any sector. Participation in debating activities makes a man forceful communicator. Debating is an art and it can be mastered and developed by constant practice. Fluency in speech enables a man to express views effectively and convincingly. Debates are nowadays a regular feature in schools and colleges. Pupils are assigned debatable statements to argue either in favour or against the motion on occasions like Independence Day or Republic Day. Often inter-school competitions are organized on such eves and the best debater is conferred with prizes. In competitive as well as school tests; examinees are asked to put forward their pros and cons views against a debatable statement. The dearth of books on debatable topics is being felt seriously which could cater to the needs of participants. Most of the participants exhibit no interest due to lack of guidance and sufficient materials and prefer to remain mute spectators in the debating hall. Here relevant topics of general interests have been compiled and presented both ways—positively and negatively with a view to provide feedback to young debaters.

Molinism promises the strongest account of God's providence consistent with our freedom. But is it a coherent view, and does it provide a satisfying account of divine providence? The essays in this volume examine the status, defensibility, and application of this recently revived doctrine, and anticipate the future direction of the debate.

This book brings together, for the first time, the classic articles that began and have shaped the debate about the Military Revolution in early modern Europe, adding important new essays by eminent historians of early modern Europe to further this important scholarly interchange.

Decision by Debate broke new ground in argumentation and debate with its publication in 1963. Ehninger and Brockriede were the first to recognize debate as fundamentally a co-operative enterprise, with the competitive clash of ideas occurring within a framework in which everyone has the opportunity to speak, in which everyone agrees to suspend judgment until all arguments are presented, in which everyone agrees to abide by the decision of the adjudicator. The most lasting legacy of the work is its break with formal, deductive logic and its introduction of Stephen Toulmin's model of argument to undergraduate student debaters, which, since then, has become a mainstay of what many have called the Renaissance of argumentation studies. Without the work presented in Decision by Debate, contemporary interdisciplinary views of argumentation that now dominate many disciplines might have never have taken place or at least have been severely delayed.

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Striving to forge a new political path in the tumultuous age of the American and French revolutions, these two ideological titans sparred over moral and philosophical questions about the nature of political life and the best approach to social change: radical and swift, or gradual and incremental. The division they articulated continues to shape our political life today. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the basis of our political order and Washington's acrimonious rifts today, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, progressivism, and the debate between them truly amount to.