Student Politics Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Student politics is a term encompassing a broad range of student behavior. It generally refers to collective student activity that aims at effecting political or social change. Most student movements and organizations falling under this heading, therefore, look “outward” at the political and social environment beyond the campus. But campus-directed activity aiming at university reform, like the influential 1918 student movement in Argentina, also may be included insofar as it is seen as having broader implications within the social and political context. While it’s most significant historical manifestations have been leftist, student politics can be informed by any variety of political ideologies. It also can take place at any level of schooling, though postsecondary student politics has generally been most effectual and has received by far the most scholarly attention.

Scholars have pointed to numerous factors accounting for the propensity of students to engage in political activity, including the higher prevalence of idealism among youth; the critical atmosphere of the university and frequently liberal views of faculty; the generally permissive campus culture; the geographical concentration of individuals with similar interests and motivations; the tendency for universities around the world to be located in politically significant cities; and the free time afforded students, especially by schools based on the European model. Politically engaged students are more likely to come from affluent, educated backgrounds and are disproportionately concentrated in the humanities and social sciences. Scholars like Lewis Feuer (1969) have offered psychological explanations for student activism as well, though Feuer’s theory of an oedipal “generational conflict” has found limited reception within the scholarly community.

However prominent it may appear at times, student politics is almost always a minority phenomenon, generally involving only a small segment of the student body, and tends to be concentrated in large, quality schools. The relatively limited prevalence of political engagement within the student body may be explained in part by other aspects of student life that are less conducive to sustained political activity. High student turnover and fluctuating student interests make it difficult to build durable student organizations, and universities with demanding examination schedules—like those in the United States—leave students little time for extracurricular endeavors. Additionally, a wide variety of apolitical extracurricular offerings—again more typical of the United States than the rest of the world—also may absorb a substantial amount of students’ time and energy.

Scholarly interest in student politics was largely stimulated by the emergence of radical student activism in the 1960s in the United States and other Western democracies, notably the heavy involvement of students in the civil rights movement through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement, and the French student protests of May 1968. The roots of modern student politics go back much further, however. The first politically significant student organizations arose in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the German Burschenschaften, and students played a significant role in the 1848 political upheavals in Germany and elsewhere.

With few exceptions and thanks in large part to state repression, however, student activity in the West had limited impact until the 1960s. The same was not true in other parts of the world, where the European university model had been introduced through imperialism. In European countries, student politics has historically played a much more prominent and influential role on the national stage. Thanks to the often extensive contributions of students during independence struggles, as in countries like Burma, India, Kenya, and Vietnam, student politics was entrenched as an important part of the political scene; after independence there, students played a key role in modernization. Consequently, students tend to garner more respect in these countries, which increases the likely effectiveness of their activities and compels the government to take them seriously. The impact of student actions has occasionally been huge—for instance, toppling the government of Adnan Menderes in Turkey and forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi in Japan in the 1960s, and causing major political disruption in Burma and South

Korea in the late 1980s, to name only a few examples. Many scholars have commented on the decline of student activism since the 1960s, particularly in the West, though the perception of this trend may be influenced by fluctuating coverage in the mainstream media. A notable resurgence, however, was stimulated by the growth and significant achievements of international antiapartheid campaigns focusing on campus divestment in 1984 and 1985. Several factors may, however, have made it difficult for students to undertake the campaigns of old. In the United States, the large-scale struggles for civil rights and against the Vietnam War (1959–1975) during the height of student activism have given way to a “new localism,” favoring small-scale and pragmatic campaigns that are less combative tactically and often tied to the interests of particular groups. Multiculturalism and postmodernism have become major forces on campuses, and under their influence student organizations have split into smaller and smaller pieces, with more targeted (and thus smaller) membership. Certain issues like ant sweatshop activism, however, may provide new opportunities for broad-based campaigns. Internationally, student movements have become harder to situate ideologically, finding a middle ground between capitalism and communism in China and eastern Europe and allying themselves with religious fundamentalism in parts of the Islamic world.

Bibliography:

Altbach, Philip. Student Political Activism: An International Reference Handbook. New York: Greenwood, 1989.
Student Politics in America: A Historical Analysis. New Brunswick, N.J.:Transaction, 1997.
Boren, Mark Edelman. Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Bose, Purnima. “From Agitation to Institutionalization: The Student Antisweatshop Movement in the New Millennium.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15 (Winter 2008): 213–240.
Feuer, Lewis S. The Conflict of Generations: The Character and Significance of Student Movements. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Fields, A. Belden. Student Politics in France: A Study of the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
Kelly, Christine. Tangled up in Red,White, and Blue: New Social Movements in America. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Levine, Arthur, and Jeanette S. Cureton. “Student Politics: The New Localism.” Review of Higher Education 21, no. 2 (1998): 137–150.
Lipset, Seymour Martin. Rebellion in the University. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1993.
Rhoads, Robert A. Freedom’s Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

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