Stock Issues

Stock issues are the standard analytical categories used in policy debate (and adapted in some Model UN crisis and committee contexts) to test whether an affirmative case for changing the status quo is fully justified. The doctrine traces back to classical stasis theory and was codified in mid-20th-century American intercollegiate policy debate. Under the stock-issues paradigm, the affirmative carries the burden of proof on every issue; losing any one is typically sufficient grounds for a negative ballot.

The conventional list includes:

• Topicality — the plan must fall within the resolution's wording.
• Inherency — a structural, attitudinal, or existential barrier in the status quo must prevent the plan from already happening.
• Harms (or Significance) — the present system must be causing identifiable, quantitatively or qualitatively important problems.
• Solvency — the proposed plan must meaningfully resolve those harms.
• Some coaches add Plan (a clear mandate) as a separate issue.

Stock issues function both as a judging paradigm (the "stock issues judge" evaluates the round through these filters, often rejecting kritiks and non-traditional arguments) and as a checklist for case construction. They contrast with competing paradigms such as policymaker, tabula rasa, games-playing, and hypothesis-testing, which weigh arguments differently — for example, a policymaker judge compares net benefits of plan versus status quo rather than demanding the affirmative win each stock issue independently.

For Model UN delegates, the framework is useful when drafting operative clauses: a strong resolution should identify a real harm, explain why existing UN action is insufficient (inherency), propose a mechanism that plausibly solves (solvency), and stay within the committee's mandate (the MUN analogue of topicality). Negative or opposing blocs frequently attack precisely these pressure points.