My Observations: Politics at Uclan and Attitudes towards It.

We often tend to assume that sociological research is the product of things that we set out to observe, and that the observations we make in everyday life, have little value in the grand scheme of things, apart from inspiring us to take up a certain topic as the bases of our interest. However this is a misconceived idea,  as we are a part of society and constantly engaging in social research whether we are aware of it, or not. Every activity we take part in offers us a chance to make an observation, and create hypothesis regarding social phenomenon. The example I would like to use for this is that of my experiences of student politics at UCLan, and what I have learnt from this.  

During my past two years at UCLan, I have worked on two campaign teams during the Student Union Elections, and experience which has led me to question how open UCLan’s student population is towards politics of any kind.  Both of the candidates I have campaigned for (One running for SU president and one for Education Officer), have both been politically active candidates, and each taken a very different approach in their campaign approach. The first candidate, when running for president, focused mainly on making potential voters aware of his policies, whilst his campaign material was quite bland and failed to get candidates to remember him.  The second, who ran for Education officer, whilst also making his policies heard, ran a campaign in which he adopted the character of ‘Maurice Moss’ from the ‘IT crowed’, a well-known character within popular culture, which gave voters something to remember, It was this difference in approach overall which lead to the second candidate beating other candidates to the role by a considerable amount, whilst the former candidate failed to make the final two contenders within his category.

                This I believe opens up a bigger question, being ‘are student elections at UCLan nothing more than a popularity contest’.  When the candidate I was supporting won the role of Education Officer, it came as a surprise to most, as throughout the campaign he had been considered as something of an underdog. However other candidates, perhaps most noticeable is one individual who ran for an open council position but didn’t show his face during the campaigning week until halfway through the final day, and still gained his position by a considerable amount, simply because he was already well known to the student population. In addition to this many other winning candidates had been widely predicted, due to some candidates forming a slate prior to the elections and the majority of them gaining their desired position.

                Actively campaigning amongst the student population also allowed me to see other signs that students were not interested in the political side of the elections.  When talking to potential voters, a few common themes emerged, these being the firstly many had no idea of what the elections were and consequently voted for the first person who spoke to them. Secondly that they voted for people who they know, regardless of how well they knew them, often this extended to individuals voting for candidates because they were a friend of a friend. Another factor which was impossible to miss was that an overwhelming percentage of the population refused to engage with the elections in any form.

                However I believe that the issues I have highlighted here go further than just a lack of knowledge about SU elections and student politics, but instead is a product of a generation in which the majority is generally disenchanted with politics. I base this on a few factors, the first of which is that being an active member of the Labour Society for the past two years, and being the Vice-Chair of the society next year I have noticed that it is a very difficult task to get students at UCLan to participate in anything political, this being reflected in the low amount of members our society managed to gain during the last freshers fair.  I believe this to be the result of the government’s attitudes towards students over the past few years, which has not only ignored them, but has actively punished them, with the tripling of tuition fees being the most noticeable example.

                   To conclude it is my opinion that the student population at UCLan need to be educated in the importance of politics, particularly the role the SU elections has on their time at UCLan. This is vital as the individuals who elected in have the power to make change and this power would be amplified if a higher present of the student population stood behind it. This applied to the greater scheme of things as well, as if student want to get a better deal, it is important that they become viewed as a population which the government see as deserving their time, as this will lead them to create policies which enhance the student experience in order to win their vote.