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Often that means that people's livelihoods are destroyed, and you lose faith in democracy, which ends up being irreversible on their side. The military holds very powerful positions in Bangladesh for reasons. They've always been given huge levels of control of the Bangladeshi economy since the Cold War. |
They are politically influential because of connections to political parties. The problem is that when the military backs the incumbent government, they have a vested interest in the leaders of protest movements. Why? They do not want the leaders of protest movements involved because the leaders specifically are people... |
Then, when student organizers begin running for office, you view democracy as a threat to the military's grasping power, and this is a perception issue on their side. The counteract by no means is perfect on our side, but student protesters are more able to portray democracy as good for the military. |
You can better ally with the military or at least not go directly against it. Even if it's not a clear path on our side, they will undermine elections, and there's more violence against protesters. That's all on that, far worse. Very proud to propose. |
</pm> |
<lo> |
So, we're going to explain two simple things in opening opposition: first, why leadership is better; secondly, why the world in which these student leaders engage outside the democratic system is far worse. |
I'm going to prove how you get instability that OG thinks is so important, as well as better policies. So, firstly, why do we just get better leadership within the system? We agree with the premise of opening government that these student leaders are likely to win because they're often uniquely inspiring people. Many p... |
The current leader of the provisional government is likely to back these individuals as well. They are just generally relatable to you and uniquely inspiring because they represent the movement that gave them democracy and was pushing to give them democracy. It represented the end of the dictatorship that oppressed so ... |
Why is this so good? I have a couple of reasons why the people make better leaders and are uniquely able to represent the youth. |
And make their voices important in the political sphere in the first place, and the premise directly challenges what we get out of opening government that says there will be incentives to represent the youth on either side of the house if we prove that youth otherwise would be politically disengaged. This means there's... |
Additionally, youth have incentives to engage in rational ignorance where they believe that their vote doesn't matter, and they have less incentive, therefore, to be politically engaged. It's not worth it to put in the effort to, you know, vote and to try and learn about political parties if you don't think your vote i... |
This means that youth, who often disproportionately appeal to these things, have no incentives to want to engage politically otherwise. So, it is uniquely only the leaders that represented the transition to democracy that youth are willing to fight for the past that would make them engage in the political system and ha... |
The second reason why youth are going to be disproportionately not represented is that they are economically weak as well. This is likely because, you know, being quite young, you have less time to accumulate wealth in the long term, which gives you political and economic leverage. Additionally, Bangladesh is currently... |
This disproportionately harms the youth because their lack of experience and time means they're not likely to be, for example, the highest middle management type people, and more likely to be workers, which has left many of them economically in the dust. This means that they have less lobbying power, but also less econ... |
This means that in the absence of these individuals, they get no representation for the youth. Furthermore, I want to explain why youth leaders themselves are incredibly good. This is because there's likely to be a selection effect where the youth leaders are likely to be people that have strong liberal democratic valu... |
What is the impact of all of this? I think it's first just good that we have good democratic liberal values, or things against corruption and pro things like meritocracy. But also, on a political policy level, it's good that we have demands to cater to people that have long-term interests, that is, the youth who are go... |
Why are these things bad in the long term? For example, textiles or other forms of manufacturing are often unsustainable as Bangladesh becomes more economically wealthy. As incomes rise, exports become less competitive because you have higher costs of inputs, and this is bad because it hinders other industries. Additio... |
So, why is it the case that alternatives are bad and are going to care about these short-termist interests? First, let's begin by characterizing who these alternatives are. For example, the BNP is an old establishment party, which has the resources and the legitimacy to succeed by being an opposition party to the Awami... |
Often, you as a leader of a party that is engaged in corruption become passively adapted to having large amounts of wealth and resources, but they are also likely to be politically short-termist as well. They are likely to have connections because, as an old establishment party, you have large connections with industry... |
For example, many workers in society are somewhat short-termist; they want to keep their jobs in the short term, even if it's bad for the country in the long term. Thus, these two factors incentivize alternative parties like the BNP to overvalue short-term interests and prioritize things like textiles rather than adapt... |
This is likely to be the case because Islamist parties use this as a primary means of differentiation as a political party against other parties, which leads to a more extremist type of rhetoric and policy stance. Secondly, I want to explain why it is worse for these leaders to engage outside the political system. Befo... |
<poi> |
UNSS has been a powerful democratizing and anti-corruption force even just since August, and overthrowing the Hasina was the cause of momentum that can be channeled to strengthen existing political institutions. Which Young people now, not in the past, have the desire to work. |
</poi> |
But but the problem is it's associated with these student leaders alongside the government as they front for the pro-democracy movement. When they don't run, they also look to do things like be critical of the otherwise democratic system. In the counterfactual, which we are going to explain now, in the short run, we th... |
So, they do things like protest in the streets, even if it's not all youth; it's likely the leaders and their close followers who now are not choosing to run but still have the original passion and desire to be engaged. This is a problem because these types of protests firstly lead to things like democratic backsliding... |
Finally, I think the overwhelming dominance of the student party that would run on our side is good in terms of avoiding the gridlock that occurs more when you have a plurality of parties on their side of the house. That are to have overwhelming majorities, and gridlock itself is often inherently bad when, for example,... |
</lo> |
<dpm> |
If this was WEDC 1980 and motion was about Zimbabwe and ZANU PF and Robert Mugabe, all of opening opposition's arguments could be made to the very same extent that the people we need to care the most about are the young revolutionaries involved in the protest movements who need to be represented by their lovely figure,... |
The best thing, they can now do is to stay on the outside to criticize, yes, to protest, as opposed to become corrupted by the political establishment. Three points in this speech: first on youth voting, second the counterfactual, finally democratic consolidation. |
First on youth establishment. This is opening opposition's main point. I have four lines of response. Response number one: the premise of opening opposition's claim is that the youth are otherwise unlikely to engage in politics. That's unlikely because student organizers don't disappear on our side of the house. They s... |
The reason why this is probably a message that will be received well by young individuals is for all the reasons that opening opposition themselves name. For example, the fact that these leaders have unique power over student protesters, the fact that these people have charisma, the fact that these individuals are seen... |
Response number two: political parties, most obviously the BNP, have strong structural incentives under our side of the house to appeal to our youth voters. This is for three reasons. Reason number one: the August protest movement energized youth votes in a way that was not true historically. So, opening opposition is ... |
Reason number two: political parties have strong incentives to appeal to youth voters to deter any potential violence. Hint: what did student protesters do this August when political parties did not represent them? They turned to the streets; they rioted. Foreign investment plummeted, which means even if the BNP, excus... |
Reason number three: on our side of the house, we have durable fiat to assume these leaders do not solely form a political party. But if you're in the BNP in the next 5, 10, or 15 years, you're always concerned that if you do not appeal sufficiently well to youth voters, these guys might come out of retirement and actu... |
Response number three to opening opposition: we'll flip their claim. Youth distrust will be worse on their side of the house. This is an argument that applies to the longer-term prospect, not the immediate term. Both teams agree in the short term the people who participated in the protests vote overwhelmingly for these... |
These people have to accept campaign contributions from corporations; they have to engage in political horse-trading to overcome the gridlock opening opposition describes. Here's the problem: when the person that you saw leading the revolution is now engaging in the very same kinds of political shenanigans that you opp... |
Now to be clear, on both sides of the house, some political party has to engage in horse-trading, campaign contributions, etc. It's better when that's a mainstream political party like the BNP, as opposed to these figureheads of the movement violating their trust, which flips their claim on engagement long-term and als... |
Point number two: what is the counterfactual? Opening opposition says that the likely counterfactual is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. We agree. Here are three reasons: first, this party has existing infrastructure. They've been in power or been the main opposition movement since the rise to power in 2009. They've b... |
Reason number two: the AL is overwhelmingly unlikely to win votes in the upcoming election. Why is that? They've been enormously discredited; their leader literally fled to, I think, India. The point is that the AL is at an all-time low, which means the BNP has enormous capacity to win the election because they have ex... |
Reason number three: just empirically, polling shows that the BNP is probably going to be the largest party in whatever the next election happens to be. Now, opening opposition's claim here is twofold. First, they say that radical Islamist parties gain power. Second, they say that the BNP is bad. |
Let's work through both. Their first plan on radical Islamist parties doesn't work for three reasons. Reason number one: there's a huge problem with this argument, which is they are right; Islamist parties will get some power. But the groups that are voting for Islamist parties would never be the student protesters on ... |
Therefore, the logical alternative is they move towards secular parties like, for example, the BNP. Response number two: it's unlikely that Islamist parties gain substantial power because there's a game-theoretic disincentive to vote for these parties. The reason why is that you know that the percentage of votes that g... |
CO. |
<poi> |
Why you distinguish between why are you saying that the BNP is the secular party? They're clearly the non... |
</poi> |
no, no, no. So just to be clear, the claim I'm making here is that the radical, fundamentalist Islamist parties are not likely to be in power. Our claim is that the BNP is preferable. |
This deals nicely with opening opposition's second plan. They say the BNP is short-termist and corrupt. A lot of problems here. Response number one: the BNP can be held accountable on our side of the house for the specific advocacy, criticism, and protesting of powerful organized movements. The BNP has incentives to li... |
Secondarily, the BNP understands that it has to earn the support of these voters because these voters, for all the reasons opening opposition identifies, are distrustful of mainstream parties—and legitimately so. So the BNP, unlike student organizers, cannot take these votes for granted, which means the BNP has strong ... |
But thirdly, and this is critical, we are fine with gridlock. Here's why: because the biggest problem facing Bangladesh is not that you don't pass policy. The biggest problem facing Bangladesh is that an authoritarian movement gains power, does not have checks on its capacity to legislate, and turns Bangladesh into a s... |
All of which means that it is good to have gridlock. On their side of the house, it can increase the probability of backsliding and military violence. We propose. |
</dpm> |
<dlo> |
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