Power and Bargaining: Political Models in Educational Management

In most educational institutions, decisions rarely emerge from a single authority sitting at the top of a chart. More often, they are the result of tug-of-war – between administrators pushing one agenda, teachers’ associations defending professional interests, and student bodies demanding to be heard. This messy, negotiation-driven reality is exactly what political models of educational management set out to explain. Unlike formal or hierarchical models that assume rational, top-down decision-making, political models acknowledge that power is distributed, contested, and constantly being bargained over.

What are political models of educational management? 🔗

Political models belong to a broader family of management theories that view organizations not as orderly hierarchies but as arenas of competing interests. As Tony Bush’s foundational work on theories of educational management explains, these models treat decision-making as fundamentally a bargaining process, where analysis centers on the distribution of power and the negotiation between interest groups. Conflict is not seen as an anomaly – it is treated as endemic to the organization itself.

At the heart of political models is a simple but powerful assumption: in educational institutions, policy and decisions emerge through negotiation among groups that hold different values, priorities, and goals. No single group has absolute control. Instead, power accrues to dominant coalitions – alliances formed by interest groups who work together to advance shared objectives. This shifts the role of educational leadership away from command and toward the ability to navigate complex political dynamics.

Political models stand in sharp contrast to formal models, which assume that managers use rational means to pursue agreed-upon goals within a hierarchical structure. They also differ from collegial models, which emphasize consensus among professionals. Political models, by contrast, are frank about the fact that consensus is often elusive and that disagreement is normal. As described in governance research published by Springer, the political frame assumes the university or school is a pluralistic entity where decision-making involves competition between individual and group interests – not just collaborative consensus-building.

The origin: Baldridge’s political model 🔗

The most influential early formulation of the political model in education came from J. Victor Baldridge, whose landmark research in the late 1960s and early 1970s fundamentally changed how scholars understood university governance. According to ERIC’s documentation of Baldridge’s research, his work argued that neither the bureaucratic model nor the collegial model adequately captured how decisions were actually made in academic organizations, and proposed the political model as a more accurate and complete alternative.

Baldridge conducted his research at New York University during a turbulent period – student protests, faculty strikes, and external pressure from government bodies were all reshaping how universities operated. His research found that the reality of academic life matched neither the calm rationality of bureaucracy nor the harmonious consensus of the collegial ideal. What he observed instead were political activities driven by the university’s complex social structure, with divergent subcultures all pursuing their own concerns.

Baldridge’s model of the university’s political system identified a sequence of interconnected stages: a complex social structure that generates conflict; forms of power and pressure that act on decision-makers; a legislative stage where these pressures are converted into policy; and a policy execution phase that feeds back into new conflicts. This cycle – conflict, pressure, policy, feedback – captures how change actually moves through educational institutions.

Baldridge also described the decision-making process as driven by “authorities” who formally make decisions, and “partisans” – interest groups within the institution – who work to influence those authorities. As summarized in higher education governance analysis, this partisan activity is not unusual or deviant – it is a structural feature of how pluralistic educational systems function.

Interest groups and the decision-making process 🔗

Central to political models is the role of interest groups – organized collectives that advocate for specific stakeholder needs within the educational system. These groups do not simply observe decisions from the outside; they actively shape them through lobbying, negotiation, coalition-building, and, when necessary, direct pressure.

In educational settings, interest groups typically include teachers’ unions and professional associations, student bodies, school boards, parent organizations, government agencies, and policymakers. Each brings its own set of values, priorities, and resources to the decision-making table. Research published in Higher Education identifies that influence strategies in academic decision-making range across two core dimensions: the mode of influence (pressure versus legitimation) and the organizational resources deployed – which can include expertise, financial resources, information, coalitions, and symbolic action.

The process of decision-making under the political model is rarely swift. Participants move in and out of engagement depending on how directly an issue affects them. Faculty, for instance, may remain largely disengaged from institution-wide governance – until a proposed policy threatens their conditions or academic freedom. At that point, as Manning’s analysis of higher education governance notes, the norm of inactivity shifts sharply toward political engagement, protest, and organized resistance.

Examples in education: Teachers’ associations and student unions 🔗

Teachers’ associations and unions 🔗

Teachers’ associations are among the most visible interest groups in educational systems worldwide. They operate on two levels simultaneously: as documented in research from the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University, collective bargaining and political organizing are the two central but distinct forms of influence that unions exercise at district, state, and national levels of decision-making.

In the United States, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) collectively represent millions of educators. According to the AEFP Live Handbook, teachers’ unions take prominent policy stances on both union-specific issues – such as collective bargaining rights and teacher evaluation – and broader education-specific concerns such as curriculum content, school safety, and public school choice. Their political reach extends to electoral politics: union endorsement in school board elections significantly increases a candidate’s likelihood of winning.

A vivid illustration of union power in action came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research published in a peer-reviewed study on school board elections found that decisions about whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction were directly influenced by local teacher-union strength – with districts facing stronger unions more likely to extend remote-only learning periods. This was a real-world demonstration of how bargaining power shapes institutional policy even under crisis conditions.

However, the political influence of teachers’ unions is also contested. Analysis in Education Next examining Michael Hartney’s research finds that while unions have successfully protected the traditional organization of public schools, their political clout has also been associated with blocking certain reform initiatives. The union’s strength, in other words, is both its asset and its limitation in serving the broader public interest.

Student unions and organizations 🔗

Student unions are another prominent interest group operating within the political model of educational management. Their role is to represent the needs and concerns of the student body – ranging from academic policies and grading systems to campus facilities, tuition fees, and student welfare. When students feel their concerns are being ignored, they mobilize. In many universities globally, student unions have organized protests, sit-ins, and petitions that have forced administrations to revisit decisions on tuition hikes, accommodation policies, and examination structures.

Student political action is not incidental – it is structurally anticipated by the political model. When a proposed university policy directly affects the student body, as extended analysis of Baldridge’s model has noted, external actors including student bodies and even state politicians often play prominent roles in shaping what are nominally internal institutional decisions. Students represent a form of organized partisan pressure that administrators cannot afford to ignore indefinitely.

The interplay between student unions and university administrations – over tuition fee increases, reservation policies, examination reforms, or hostel regulations – is one of the clearest live examples of political model dynamics playing out in real institutional settings.

Strengths of the political model 🔗

The political model offers several genuine strengths, particularly in the context of complex educational institutions.

Representation of diverse stakeholders. Because the political model explicitly acknowledges the presence of multiple interest groups, it builds in a mechanism for stakeholder representation. Decisions that emerge from bargaining are more likely to reflect a wider range of interests than decisions made unilaterally at the top of a hierarchy. This is particularly important in higher education, where students, faculty, administrative staff, and government bodies all have legitimate stakes in how institutions are managed.

Realism about organizational life. The political model does not pretend that organizations operate with unified goals or that consensus is easily achieved. A case study of a language teaching institute found that the political model best described departmental-level decision-making – where committees and informal groups promoted their own interests, producing an environment in which conflict was the primary characteristic. This realism makes the model a more accurate descriptive lens for understanding how schools and universities actually function.

Particular relevance to higher education. Baldridge’s original Stanford Project research concluded that among the bureaucratic, collegial, and political models, the political model was the most satisfactory and complete for understanding academic governance. Higher education institutions, with their high student numbers, multiple faculties, professional autonomy, and pluralistic social structures, are environments where interest articulation and bargaining are especially pronounced. Research on higher education governance models in Turkey similarly found that the political model was frequently observed in universities, particularly as institutions grew larger and more complex.

Limitations of the political model 🔗

Despite its descriptive power, the political model carries significant limitations that make it unsuitable as a standalone framework for educational management.

Prone to conflict and instability. When interest groups cannot reach agreement, decision-making stalls. The political model offers no reliable mechanism for resolving deadlocks – it simply describes the ongoing struggle. In schools where daily operations must continue, prolonged political conflict between staff groups, student bodies, and administrators can seriously undermine institutional effectiveness.

Power imbalances can distort outcomes. The political model assumes that policy emerges from bargaining – but bargaining outcomes depend on the relative power of the groups involved. As the Hoover Institution’s analysis of teachers’ unions notes, when one interest group becomes disproportionately powerful, it can use that power not only to advance its members’ interests but also to block reforms that might benefit students and the broader public. The political model’s neutrality toward power – treating all bargaining as normal – can leave it without a normative framework for distinguishing good outcomes from bad ones.

Limited applicability in primary schooling. The political model’s strongest explanatory value lies in higher education. In primary and secondary schools, the degree of formal interest group organization is typically lower, decision-making structures are more centralized, and the principal’s formal authority plays a larger role. The language teaching institute case study found that while the political model applied well at the departmental level, the formal and cultural models were more dominant at the institutional level – a reminder that no single model captures the full complexity of any real school or college.

Risk of losing sight of educational purpose. When institutional management becomes dominated by political bargaining among interest groups, there is a real danger that the core purpose of education – student learning and development – gets sidelined. The struggle for power can displace attention from pedagogical goals. As Tony Bush’s work on educational management theory cautions, management must remain centrally connected to the purposes and aims of education; when procedures and power struggles take precedence, educational values can be eroded.

The political model in practice: a hybrid reality 🔗

In practice, few institutions operate purely under one model. Most schools and universities combine elements of formal, collegial, and political management depending on the decision at hand, the stakeholders involved, and the stakes. A principal might use formal authority to manage routine administrative processes, draw on collegial consultation when developing curriculum, and then navigate political pressure from parent bodies and teacher unions when proposing structural changes.

The political model’s value, then, is less as a blueprint for how to manage and more as a lens for understanding how power actually moves through educational institutions. Recognizing that interest groups exist, that they will bargain, and that conflict is a normal rather than exceptional part of institutional life – this awareness is itself a form of preparedness for educational leaders. It equips them to anticipate political dynamics rather than be caught off guard by them.

Understanding political models is not about accepting conflict as desirable; it is about having the analytical tools to manage it constructively, so that negotiation leads to better outcomes for all stakeholders – most importantly, for learners.

What do you think? In your experience of educational institutions – as a student, teacher, or administrator – have you seen political bargaining shape a significant institutional decision? And do you think conflict between interest groups ultimately strengthens or weakens the quality of education in an institution?

References

1. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1066693.pdf
2. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-015-9946-7_11
3. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED060825
4. https://medium.com/@tbarnes2686/organizational-frames-a-political-institution-91e52e7bebd5
5. https://lkuzarapostuniversity.wordpress.com/2019/07/14/higher-education-organizational-structure/
6. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01383735
7. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED558142
8. https://livehandbook.org/k-12-education/workforce-teachers/unions-and-collective-bargaining/
9. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8782213/
10. https://www.educationnext.org/how-teachers-unions-became-a-political-powerhouse/
11. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249680858_Beyond_Baldridge_Extending_the_Political_Model_of_Higher_Education_Organization_and_Governance
12. http://www.universitypublications.net/jte/0401/pdf/DE4C117.pdf
13. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED109937
14. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1338833.pdf
15. https://www.hoover.org/research/staggering-power-teachers-unions