Welcome to the 9th edition of the Monash Debating Review. The MDR is a multidisciplinary,
peer reviewed journal that addresses issues of interest to debaters. Our
International Editorial Board helped us solicit submissions from across the globe,
and we hope that the MDR assists in furthering discussion among the debating
community, and provides different perspectives on classic issues.
In this edition, we’re exploring the future of university debating as it becomes more
and more a truly global enterprise. We start by taking stock of the sheer scope of
our inquiry as Nick Bibby offers us an exclusive look at the preliminary findings of
the first-ever Global Debating Census. Leela Koenig examines the rise of women’s
debating tournaments in Europe.
Then, in our feature article, Eric Barnes, Andy Hume, and Steve Johnson tackle one of
the major challenges posed by international debating’s meteoric expansion, giving us
insight, analysis, and hard statistics as they lay out the costs and benefits of different
strategies to expand the WUDC break.
As we move from the global to the national, Mirja Hämäläinen, Karen Nelson, Alfred
Snider, Maja Nenadovićis, and Megan Harlow offer a detailed look at the growth of
debating in Finland, demonstrating that contentious discourse can flourish alongside
a political culture which prizes consensus. Reporting on his experiences in Rwanda,
Will Jones charts the interaction between formal debating and shifting discursive
norms in an emerging democracy. We conclude our round-the-world tour of global
debating in Israel, where Mollie Gerver cites the impact of formal debates training
upon argumentative practice in non-debating contexts.
We wrap up with a few words of wisdom from veteran debater and economics
graduate Harish Natarajan, who offers his advice on tackling some of the hottest
topics in contemporary global debating: the credit crunch, sovereign debt, and the
global economic slowdown.
Happy reading- and happy debating!
Regards,
The MDR Editorial Team
Doug Cochran: Editor, Islands of the North Atlantic
Leela Koenig: Associate Editor, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Stephen Boyle: Associate Editor, The Americas
Victor Finkel: Associate Editor, Asia and Australasia