Political debate provides a platform for expressing differing viewpoints about issues and policy. It promotes a better understanding of complex issues, encourages compromise, and helps shape public policy. A course in political debate offers students the opportunity to learn a variety of research techniques for collecting and analyzing evidence, as well as to develop debating skills such as articulation, clarity, and confidence.
Debates in America are important because the political system requires informed citizens to make decisions about their country’s future. To ensure a quality debate, the CPD has carefully vetted sites and dates to host its presidential and vice presidential debates. This includes consideration of early voting, religious and federal holidays, other milestone events (e.g. the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations), White House television pool contractual conflicts, and more. The CPD also carefully applies its nonpartisan candidate selection criteria to determine which candidates will participate in a debate.
The CPD has also worked to develop debate formats that allow maximum time and attention to be devoted to the candidates. For example, it was the first organization to introduce a town meeting format in 1992, and it has been used every cycle since. This allows citizens to ask questions of the candidates.
In a series of studies, researchers asked people to think about debates they’ve had in the past year and who they’ve debated with. They found that people significantly overestimate how often they debate strangers, especially on topics that aren’t personal to them. Educating the public about debate dynamics could help mitigate these misperceptions and foster more productive dialogue.