Fiat

Fiat, or "fiat power", refers to the ability of the Affirmative team to assume their plan will be passed. For example, if the Negative team attempts to argue that Congress won't pass the Affirmative plan, the Affirmative might respond that they have "fiat power" to ensure that the plan is passed.

Fiat is commonly treated as a specific "power" granted to the Affirmative, but in reality, it is simply a convenient way to clarify that certain arguments are moot. Because of the wording of the resolution and the nature of the debate round, debate concerns whether we should do something. Since arguments like "this would never get through Congress" don't disprove that we should do it, they are irrelevant; the Affirmative can essentially presuppose that their plan will be passed.

The verb "to fiat" is often used to describe the Affirmative advocating a specific mandate: i.e. "The Affirmative fiated that..." functionally means "The Affirmative advocated that...", etc.

Legitimate actors
Many resolutions specify an actor, i.e. a body which is responsible for making the reform. For example, in the resolution "Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should significantly reform its criminal justice system," the actor is the United States Federal Government. Affirmatives are said to only have "fiat power" over the U.S. Federal Government, because proposing reforms that use other actors is nontopical - it doesn't actually answer the question of the resolution, which is "should the United States Federal Government significantly reform its criminal justice system?"

Abuse of fiat
Some plans may be considered an abuse of fiat. Typically, such plans involve something that cannot be done within the current legal framework, or something that is so far removed from reality as to make debating it a pointless exercise. For example, mandating that China would not veto its removal from the U.N. Security Council might be considered an abuse of fiat (because it is completely unrealistic.)

In resolutions without an explicitly specified actor - such as "Resolved: That the United Nations should be significantly reformed or abolished" - arguments about abusive fiat are more likely to surface, as it is theoretically possible for the Affirmative to fiat an actor such as God, Chuck Norris, etc. (In practice, such extreme actors are never seen, but other potentially-abusive actors may surface, such as Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea.)

Controlling the actions of the Supreme Court is often considered an abuse of fiat (main article: Supreme Court fiat). Charges of abusive fiat are relatively rare in the NCFCA and Stoa.