A first encounter with student politics

This spring, we stumbled into UiO’s student politics without quite knowing what we were getting into. We were excited and nervous, but we were looking forward to participating in something new. We met a political institution that was not open for new ideas or new participants. Our impression is that you would have to know someone in the Student Parliament at UiO (SP), or have participated before, in order to get a seat at the table. In addition, criticism was brushed off as unrealistic and with an attitude of 'the older knows best'. We see two problems with student politics that led us to not feeling welcome.

First of all, we experienced that there was little room for disagreement. The political theoretician Chantal Mouffe writes that democracy is fundamentally based on exactly this. Disagreement here is not about having different opinions, but about creating an active room for differences. This is the basis for all politics, and a real student democracy needs to accommodate for open disagreement, not closed consensus. We experienced a dismissal of voices that are on the outside of the established.

Secondly, we experienced little willingness for change and reflection on the function of the student democracy. Earlier SP-leader Christen Wroldsen wrote in Universitas on the 29th of August: “(…) Those who like to shout about the student democracy’s failure, are shooting themselves in the foot. To talk down the democracy weakens trust and engagement, not the opposite.” A democracy is never perfect or complete, and by not questioning the status quo, it will stagnate. Criticism of the democracy does not weaken trust, it highlights that we are never at our goal. We have to continuously reconsider, criticise, and reflect over the systems we are building, or we’ll come to a halt.

How can we engage the broader student mass to participate, when even those who have been elected to SP, don’t feel welcome? We believe that disagreement, self-examination, and change are the best guidelines for new improvements of the student democracy. We have to be imaginative and adventurous. We have to be willing to experiment and be open to trying new solutions. The student democracy, like a local political micro-cosmos, is an ideal platform for this.

The Guest List has earlier suggested creating a citizens’ jury at UiO - an additional advisory chamber in the Student Parliament, consisting of randomly chosen ordinary students. This would be an important step in the direction of a more including student democracy. We’re staying in good spirits and look forward to becoming more familiar with student politics, so that we can work together to revolutionise the student democracy.