Seeking Consensus
December 12, 2008
The Round
Adjudicator: Ian Lising (University of La Verne)
Tournament: 2008 Oxford Intervarsity Championship (Final Round)
Location: The Oxford Union, Oxford University, England
Date: November 8, 2008
Motion: “This House would make the number of votes a person can cast in an election inversely proportional to their wealth.”
Teams: OG: (4th) LSE Woon Lee and Rushabh Ranavat (England)
OO: (3rd) Loyola Marymount Kevin Kiley and Mike Aguilera (USA)
CG: (1st) Middle Temple Daniel Warents and Douglas Cochran (England)
CO: (2nd) UCC L&H Stephen Boyle and Ian Boyle Harper (Ireland)
Abstract: There is the round that happened in the debate chamber and the round as it happens in the deliberation. The adjudication panel must always strive to avoid assessing both debates rather than the appropriate one. Muddling through a tough read on a round can complicate things and often leads to an interesting result. This article will take you behind closed doors to see how consensus is reached. It should be noted that the decision as posted above was not the actual announced result at the event. The only result announced was the winning team. The rest of the decision comes as a representation of the adjudication conferral, which took nearly two hours.
Discussion
The PM started with the humorous, self-deprecating announcement that they were “so not going to win this round!” then preceded to say, “We have one case we prepped, and the other that we came up with while the Irish were singing. Which do you want to hear?” After the laughter died down, he decided to present both. This would have been clever, had the two concepts not led to inherent contradictions with one another.
Beyond the obvious problems, the Opening Government case was incomplete and banked on the DPM’s more serious attempt to restore them as a relevant team in the round. So this easily rendered them the fourth-placed team in the final.
The Opening Opposition’s case was straightforward. Head-to-head, they clearly defeated the case that came in front of them and had a decent Opposition line. The Closing teams both had plausible extensions and did enough to move the round past the top half. However, herein lies the problem. It wasn’t a clear “bottom half” round, a phrase used to describe a situation in which the Closing teams successfully take both of the Opening teams out of contention. The eight panelists who had one of the Closing teams as the winning team actually had the other Closing team as the THIRD placed team and unanimously had the Opening Opposition in second. The adjudicator with the Opening Opposition team in first needed to be swayed in either direction with regard to both closing teams.
Consensus adjudication, as the name suggests, seeks unanimity in the perceptions of the adjudication panel. Normally, following a healthy discussion, adjudicators may be moved to reassess their perspectives on the round after taking into consideration what other panelists may have observed differently in the debate; this discussion typically leads to a true consensus. If no such consensus emerges, a straight majority vote is taken. Votes are carried out position by position until all the four places have been awarded. Unfortunately, in the final round at this year’s Oxford IV, a simple vote produced no clear winner.
The greatest challenge that spilt votes presents an adjudication panel (more specifically, the Chair) is that there is a fine line between conducting a discussion that would potentially move everyone into a consensus and merely allowing people to “dig their heels in” and justify their opinions at all costs. The Chair has to be sensitive to the amount of time within which a fair decision should be made. A preliminary round at a major intervarsity tournament, for example, will require a decision within 10 to 20 minutes. This pales in comparison with the one to two hour-long marathons endured by panels in the break rounds.
The sentiment that many have correctly opined is, “What is the difference between a preliminary round and a final? Shouldn’t the panels be equally careful is both deliberations? So what goes on in there?”
Each adjudicator is given the task of representing their complete view on the round with the other adjudicators carefully observing that they are not interceding for teams in the round. This often happens when adjudicators unwittingly end up interpreting the speeches in a biased fashion. Many times, the speech ends up sounding a lot better in the words of the adjudicator than it did during the actual round itself. It is not the adjudicator’s role to bridge the gap between what the speaker said and what the speaker meant to say. Conversely, there are times when an adjudicator “dislikes” the presentation of debater because the adjudicator silently rebutted the points, arguments, or even the entire case for himself.
Neither condition is necessarily so in this study, given the considerable adjudication experience that each of the members of the panel possessed. Additionally, specific care was taken in each instance of the round’s evaluation. Each adjudicator carefully checked one another for “interpretive” rather than “representational” viewpoints. Taking the same type of care in pouring through each adjudicator’s process is what helps a panel reach a communal rationale. But, this is what inevitably takes a whole lot more time than preliminary round discussions. Additionally considering that there were nine people in this panel whereas most preliminary rounds would consist of just three.
Knowing when to end the discussion comes down to answering a simple question, “Is there anything that anyone can possibly do or say to help you change your mind about this decision?” If the answer is “Yes,” then the discussion might prove successful in getting a more accurate read of the round. If not, then carrying on with the deliberation process will exhaust time and effort for no reason whatsoever. This is when a straight vote should be taken. In the case of the 2008 Oxford IV, the vote went 5-4 for the Closing Government. The sad part here is that the Opening Opposition on paper had eight votes to be second place, but the Closing Opposition had four votes to be in first. So, the Closing Opposition must come in second. The Opening Opposition would have to take the tough third and the Opening Government takes the fourth.
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