Inherency

Inherency is a stock issue in policy debate that refers to a barrier that keeps a harm from being solved in the status quo.

There are four main types of inherency:

Despite the classification of these four as the "main types" of inherency, the existence of other types are subject to theory (much like a substantial part of the lexicon for the event). In higher level policy debate inherency has become a non issue. There are some judges who will not vote on it, and negative teams do not run it often because it may contradict uniqueness arguments on disadvantages. However, inherency arguments are more likely to be run with a "Stocks Issues" judge who could hold that the absence of an inherent barrier is enough to merit an affirmative loss.