Student Politics And Its Influence On Political Development

As group being an important unit of activities in the modern social life, the group stratification of a society leads to the emergence of group politics. Group politics is a special form of citizens’ political participation and is increasingly demonstrating its significance in the research field of political science. A study on the political participation of student groups is undoubtedly an important as well as brand new perspective.Universities, being the venue where young students highly gather, posses double attributes of close-to-politics and away-from-politics. The way of university students’ political participation is profoundly influenced by the vision and nature of the universities.Young students demonstrate vivid characteristics:they are highly homogeneous, young, passionate, energetic, curious about new things, however they are lacking in experience, stability and durability; the ties among group members are relatively fixed, since universities provide important norms and the guarantee of space in the process of student groups’ communication; the members in the student groups could strongly exert influence and could act powerfully, since they establish interaction by means of self learning and social learning. The society always has high expectation on that group to lead the social development, while young students usually have very strong senses of responsibility and mission, willing to put into practice.This paper starts with the research on the student movements constantly happened around1960s in the western world. The author applies the framework of political science in order to systematically understand the history of student movements in the1960s. Then the author investigates the causes of the student movements, finding out that there exist natural and close relations between young students and politics. The students’ political movement is one form of student politics. Under the circumstance that the interest appeals of student groups could not be satisfied in the current institutions, it is generally in the form of a spontaneous, confrontational and abnormal political activity of student groups with a certain scale, which could often aggravate into violence. Some of the protests are focusing on concrete problems while some of them indicate the comprehensive oppose to the deep-rooted social institutions.The paper tries to analyze and discuss on the institutions of interaction between student politics and political transitions, utilizing the theory of social movement characterized by "transition, structure and discourse" which is put forward by Zhao Dingxin as well as the theory of political transition. A case study of Korean student movement promoting the democratic transition of South Korea is conducted. During the period of political authoritarianism in Korea, the most active forces were not those of workers or farmers, but composed by some other organizations of civil society. The most active forces were mainly derived from intellectual and cultural spheres instead of labor spheres. The group of university students was undoubtedly the most active part, with the concern about politics, the command of knowledge and information, ideas, relatively strong sense of democracy and certain influential powers. The enormous student group which was created with the development of higher education gradually developed into a significant social power. At first, the students became aware of legitimacy crisis of the political authoritarian institutions, and then they protested with concrete actions. Once the appeals and activities were supported by other social classes, tremendous power could be generated to promote the social transition. In the transitional process from dictatorship to democratic politics in Korea, the student group was considered the most active and the most important force even though it was not the decisive one.Finally, the author explores the prospects of the developments of student politics and put forward the corresponding solutions, in the face of the fact that the student movement is bond to exist and emerge constantly in the long run as a form of social activity. There is obvious contradictory in the political participation of the youth group. The crucial features of political sense of university students currently include the coexistence of enthusiasm and apathy, of autonomy and confusion, and of rationality and extreme. As a result, two key issues should be dealt with properly in the political guidance of university students. Firstly, the phenomenon of "political apathy" should be avoided with cautious. Secondly, efforts need to be paid to create the benign interaction between "students" and "politics". It would contribute to the protection of university students’ political enthusiasm, would lower the possibility of political risks in the social transition and would be beneficial to the construction of harmonious society. The author argues that the strategy could be started by strengthening and consolidating the ideology and political education for university students, by increasing the capability of political groups to integrate students, by creating abundant opportunities of participation and by providing convenient channels of participation. To encourage the supportive political participation and to prevent the confrontational ones, the benign interaction of students and politics could be established.