Undergraduates’ Political Participation Behaviors in Public Universities of Hebei Province, China

Political participation is a necessity of human life and the level of it reflects the degree of democracy which can be considered not only the right but also the obligation. Hebei province as a populous province has a large population of undergraduates, especially the expansion the university education policy carrying out in 2008. For the undergraduates in Hebei Province, they do not have adequate political knowledge, political skills and rarely practice in political activities. The objective of this article is to propose and evaluate students’ political participation behaviors in Hebei public universities of China. Data of this article is based on two sources; primary data were collected through questionnaire and 1990 informants were selected based on the cluster sampling method, the main statistical method for evaluation of research hypotheses is on the basis of on the basis of SmartPLS and SPSS software, meanwhile, secondary data which were collected from journal articles, reports and so on. Findings of this study indicate that, the level of students’ political participation was low in public universities in Hebei province in China. Moreover, the author elaborated four reasons that led to the low political participation behaviors in public universities of Hebei Province, which were the weak economic foundation, the backwardness of the cultural environment, the unsound political system and the influence of traditional culture. In addition, the author suggested that political participation among Hebei province public universities students need to improve and develop.


Introduction
Political participation is a necessity of human life and the level of it reflects the degree of democracy which can be considered not only the right but also the obligation.Hebei province as a populous province has a large population of undergraduates, especially the expansion the university education policy carrying out in 2008.Along with the Jing-Jin-Ji integrated policies which carried out on 2013 and have become a significant strategy of the whole China, Hebei province plays a significant role to implement this policy and develop itself not only in politics and economy, but also in culture and education following the new opportunity.The undergraduate is a unique group who is able to be the elites, governor, and politician and must be the person who takes part in the social lives.For the undergraduates in Hebei Province, they do not have adequate political knowledge, political skills and rarely practice in political activities; however, the undergraduate is a necessary group to participate the social and governmental activities.
In China, the history of students' political participation can draw back to the Revolution of 1919; however, the youth disengage in the political activities appear obviously in the modern society.Youth political participation exist some problems as follows: their social subject consciousness is weakness and begun to appear political apathy in the process of political participation (Zhao & Tang, 2008), their participatory motivation presents utilitarian and purposefulness gradually (Gao, 2009), they have ambiguous cognition on political participation and lack of political theoretical knowledge, their behavior and consciousness of political participation are ass.ccsenet.difference, the experi concentrat this article China.Campaign activities (CA) constitutes standard political participation which can exert pressure or communicate information with other citizens in the process of participation (Verba & Nie, 1972).Table 1 displays that slightly from 32.1% to 21.1% of the total respondents never participate into CA domain tested by the four behaviors .Compared to protest and PC behaviors, the level of CA improves a little bit, but it is not obvious.Absent in attending meeting or speech is the highest with 32.1% in CA domain, which because it needs the expense.It is possible for students to have time conflicts between participation and coursework, academic subjects stand in privilege position, participatory activities have to shun the way except the students are obsessed with politics.Outcome-oriented tends to be the second reason why the respondents refused to CA, the more work for voting respondents do, the less feedback can be obtained.The core value can be attributed to the third reason, done works in this domain, improving how many citizens to participate cannot be calculated and adding how much competitive ability cannot be measured.Therefore, respondents reject CA behavior because of the effects of the behavior itself.

Data
Vote (PPB5) is not only the right but also the obligation of the citizen which required by the Constitution of PRC.In China' political reality, citizen can directly vote the gross representatives.Vote as the standard political participatory behavior and some of the scholars stated "vote is the unique activity which provides equal chance for each citizen to participate into politics" (Zhou, 2014), and the result demonstrates the assumption and citizen more positively participate than other behaviors.Vote as the only political act presented in table 1 that can influence the governmental behavior directly, 87.5% students are participate into rarely, sometimes, often and always degree that indicates majority of respondents in this research are positive enough to vote in universities.Vote is the citizen's power and obligation, the obvious increasing tendency comparing with the other behaviors indicates the right and participatory ideology has improved.
As for the protest behavior, the Constitution of PRC stipulates explicitly any citizen has the right to protest; however, the rules are in fuzzy states, not all the protest behavior can be admitted by the government.And in detail, about 61.6% students refused to participate in demonstration that indicates a majority of students did not through protest behavior in order to achieve political participation.If cannot compare the benefit and cost, not to do is better than do, pursuing the maximum benefit becomes an important reason.Undergraduates as the high knowledgeable group, in case participate into demonstration, which was deemed to law breaking or social riot, that would record into file and influence the future of students; whereas not to do, just inactive into participation even not exercise the participatory power which cannot be judged as right or wrong.The undergraduate in university accept, master and practice the knowledge totally in order to achieve professional future, once because the demonstration was reported into the "black file" which bad for finding job without right political orientation.The loss outweighs the gain, usually students choose the maximum benefits and shun bad influence, especially being vindicated by the government; therefore, rejecting demonstration seems better for future.Therefore, rational choice and benefit maximization are likely to be the reason why protest behavior stands in low level.
Individuals with particular concerns contact with government candidates or officials is displayed by political contact in this research, including two behaviors, one is contacting civil servant (governor) and the other one is contacting NPC deputy member.Closely to 55% students never contact an elected politician and 42.3% students refuse to contact a civil servant to explain or complain issues.PC domain provides the channel to express opinions, suggestions and recommendations in the process of political activism in order to influence government policy making; however, students' refusal behavior indicates PC is not an effective way to participate.In PRC electoral and grassroots' democracy system, citizen has the right to vote people's representatives in primarily (Lin, 2011), while contacting representatives is likely difficult to practice because of the internal and external reasons.First, it is difficult to contact strategy, considering the way which is suitable public or secret, individual or group institution, and direct face to face or electricity contact?The tough way restricts students to try to contact.Secondly, failure experience is enough to be the obstacle no matter from students' or others.Contacting failure provides the hurdle to express directly lead to no chance; communication and appeal failure supply the ineffective for influence the government.Thirdly, the undergraduate is both the student and the social human beings; focus study is the first task for each student in university.Participation in this process without adding the academic remarks, and even providing suggestions to the officials without achieving influence policy-making confidence that gradually dampen the students' enthusiasms, wherefore, never involvement in PC is because of channel limitation and result-orientated motivations.Hence, strategy, process and results lead students take part into politics negatively and stand in low level.

The Level of Respondents for Political Participation
Political participation in this research is aim to influence policy-making and participate in the process of politics, it is wider than some scholars requires political participation is only the activities in voting and narrower than ass.ccsenet.students with less knowledge-store reserve are more curious about political participation, and try their best as well as they can.

Discussion
The students' performance in politics concurs with some previous studies were low (Donát, 1991;Henn & Foard, 2012;Kalaycioglu & Turan, 1981;Vráblíková, 2010) tested by the frequency of eight behaviors.There are a number of reasons why participation may appear this result.
One obvious reason is that definition different.In this research, political participation is as a whole behavior which was measured by eight political activities related to the way individual chooses to influence government or press on government.It is wider than some scholars who emphasized political participation is just election (Milbrath, 1981;Scaff, 1975;van Deth, 2001), if only emphasized on voting behavior in the definition of PP, students' level of PP stands in moderate level based on Table 1, because the in this research, focus on the common behaviors which plays important role in respondents growth process and often occurs in daily life.Therefore, research scope of the range is one of the reasons why students are at low level.
The second reason is because that political activism is the process of collective outcome, and the personnel influence is relative low.Political acts can influence governmental leaders by exerting pressure or communicating information about preference (Ohme et al., 2017;Scaff, 1975;van Deth, 2001); however, single individual' influence is limited that's why political contact level in this research also keep in the low level, channel and methods restricts students' influential power.On basis of Table 1, students are unlikely to achieve political participation by political contact because individual neither contacts civil servant nor elected candidates seldom.Although the Constitution of PRC alleges that citizen have freedom of association, while the result cannot be judged legal or illegal and the influence of individual is small; therefore, students would rather be in low participatory level without loss, but also than participate in impact of bad future.
The third reason why students' political activism stays in low level is because of professional development.
Participants in this study are the students whose first task is to master academic skill prepared for future development.In case immersing into participation, expense on study become a new trend and being busy in participating, compared with the benefit and cost, in order to have a better future, reducing participation is likely to be a no task choice.
Examining the effect of demographic information is aim to deeply on students' low level political participation.
The effect from high to low of demographics is: gender, interest, political knowledge-store and major; whereas hometown and family income have no effect on political participation based on Table 9. Physiological factor (gender) plays the most important role in influencing the level of political participation; family background has no effect on political participation that violates the assumption of Verba's SES model.Knowledge-store displays negative influence to participation: the less knowledge the students have, the higher level of participation they take.To propose and evaluate students' political participation behaviors in Hebei public universities was the first objective of this research.In order to achieve this objective, this research examined eight participatory behaviors.
As the core in democratic politics and ruler to measure degree of political democracy, political participation has been concerned by the government and public.Participatory democracy requires citizen to have public spirit, care for public affairs and follow public rational choice.Students accepting higher education as the citizens are more prudent because knowledge strengthens mind and thinking.Knowledge makes the students full of energy to political activity and master the belief of "Thinking before leap" that is a good way for the participants in the process to make choice whether to do or not to do.Students are more initiative; transforming knowledge to practice is the motivation for students, furthermore, not considering the results to test knowledge right or wrong is the impetus in the process of participation.
Although "expanding citizens' political participation step by step" is in the report of 16th, 17th and 18th NCCPC, the students' low level political participation has already appeared in the result.Attributed to the following reasons: First, the weak economic foundation restricts the range of participation.The material determines the consciousness; the economic basis determines the superstructure.Hebei province is an agricultural province, which provides food crops, vegetables, and labor force to Beijing and Tianjin, and surround the two cities, the per capita GDP in 2017 was 40,367 RMB ranking among 34 provincial administrative regions nationwide (X.Xu, 2017), and is considered as the most underdeveloped in the provinces along eastern coast of China.
Compared with developed province, the backward economy of Hebei province becomes the hurdle for political participation."High-level political participation is always accompanied by higher levels of development, and social and economically more developed societies also tend to give higher value to political participation" (Huntington, 1998); therefore, increasing economic level, strengthening economic construction, creating an energetic economic environment are suitable methods to overcome the restriction of political participation.
Secondly, the backwardness of the cultural environment hinders the high-quality conducting political participation.After the foundation of the PRC, the education industry was vigorously developed and obtained some achievement; however, the educational level of Hebei province is lower than average level of provinces in China.There is no university which indicates the higher educational level in Hebei province in "Project 985 or 211", even the replacement "Double First Class University Plan"; neither the top university nor first class disciplines are the sorrow of education in Hebei province.Educational level is directly proportional to participatory level (Almond & Verba, 1989), lagging high education in Hebei province produce the trouble in the process of political participation.
Thirdly, political system in Hebei province, even in China is unsound, and need to improve and develop.In general, system construction is unbalance to real practice.Facing emergency, the public mass need to deal promptly, and the government should handle immediately; however, the system does not give the answer how to deal or resolve.In the process of political activity, without policy-making chance, individual based on their willing decides to participate, maybe influence the result.Imperfect political system becomes the obstacle of low political participation.
Fourthly, traditional culture influence individual's behaviors.Politics is the politician's or political elite's politics, conventional representative democracy provides the concept which leads individual lost the interest because whether participate or not, the results were not influenced or changed by their activities.
In detail from the descriptive statistics of this study, undergraduates in public universities of Hebei province in China demonstrated a low level performance in politics.The standard political participation behavior vote is at a moderate to high level that indicates the students prefer to vote because the Constitution of ROC claims vote is the right and duty for each legal citizen of ROC.Every citizens should have equality in political activity not only during elections (Pateman, 1970(Pateman, , 1971)).Students with high knowledge are familiar with the requirements of law, and shunning doing the activities which violate the law is the basic knowledge.The other relative participatory activities as the affinity behavior serving to vote were in lower level.The effects of personality traits as the internal elements are statistically and substantively significant regarding political participation.Similar as the previous study (W.K. T. Cho et al., 2006;Salisbury, 1975;Schlozman et al., 1999;Verba, Schlozman, Brady, & Nie, 1993b), male and female students has statistical difference on the level of political participation as soon as gender has small to moderate effect on it.Individuals who have high interest in politics are more likely to participate, while those who have more political knowledge are less likely to participate into politics.Therefore, male students with more interest and less knowledge prefer to take part in low-level political activities.
Otherwise, there is no effect of family income and hometown on low level political participation, it different from the empirically research (Feldman, 1988;Karp & Banducci, 2008;Kern, Marien, & Hooghe, 2015), the family elements gradually lost its influence on political participation for Hebei public universities' students.The People's Republic of China is a world populous country, the government focuses on people, in order to protect and improve the people's livelihood and advance fairness and justice; since the17th NCCPC, government increased the public resource into education including increasing the educational facilitates, student loans and insurance, which provides more chances for students to contact the frontier information and political activities.Therefore, students obtain the benefits more from government instead of family.Government policy leads them to extend horizons and gain the equality chances of education without caring how much parents' income per year and where they come from, even if the family is poverty, the student loan can help to complete the study.Besides that it is not means the family factors is unimportant for students' growth, probably influencing students' psychology or other aspects is not referred in this research.It just implies family income cannot prevent students to participate into politics.
Based on the findings, the present study demonstrate that regional differences do not have an influence on students in the perspective of political volunteers, in this regard, outcome revealed that urbanization level also swell with respectively.One of the results in narrowing the gap between rural and urban areas and improving living conditions in rural is space integration, no matter where people live, the advanced communication technology promotes to share information at the same time through traditional devices like TV, broadcast, newspaper, or modern network equipment, especially after the requirement of "Internet Plus" policy 2015 by primer Li Keqiang.Technology reformation decreases the distance from rural and urban students who can get the same information and enjoy the social innovation as soon as possible.When the space integrated, hometown in rural or urban is not important, put how much attention into politics are more decided by the students' internal causes, for example, interest in politics, gender and political knowledge which are discussed before.
On the basis of the results, major as one of key elements separated students in university has small effect on political participation; however, different from the traditional result (Jin & Zhang, 2008;W. Gao, 2009), social science students stand into the lowest-level political participation.Following the "educational extending policy", students have more and more chance to accept higher education as well as choose the major which like best judging by the remarks of College Entrance Examination.Major selected is similar to participatory enthusiasm, internal willing is critical for the result, to participate or not.The major of Engineer was concentrated the students with quick-wittedness and operating capability, those students are more likely to focus on the new, positively try and bravely accept failure; to some extent, political participation is new, and they do not know the result is success or failure at beginning, however, they take part in the process in order to achieve the goal.Some proponents claim "politics is social science", social science students should be more expert in this part, conversely, the result in this research indicates those students in social science are in lowest level in the four major groups.Social science students with subtle consider the results more, after calculating the benefit and cost and then deciding to do or not to do.
In summary, these lower levels of political participation among Hebei province public universities students are blamed on the personal factors (internal factors) and major-selected.Due to the different definition of political participation, law personnel influence and professional development, the students' performance in politics concurs with some previous studies in this study were low tested by the frequency of eight behaviors.Moreover, there were four reasons that led to the low political participation behaviors in public universities of Hebei Province, which were the weak economic foundation, the backwardness of the cultural environment, the unsound political system and the influence of traditional culture.In addition, as Hebei province plays a significant role to implement Jing-Jin-Ji integrated policies which carried out on 2013, political participation among Hebei province public universities students need to improve and develop.
students from c an = 17.4862).

Table 9 .
The effect size of demographic information on political participation