In the last few weeks I’ve been sharing my thoughts on what makes for a rubbish student experience, the limitations of new public management, and why new public service might offer a new way of organising students’ unions organising their work.
New public service is the idea that the purpose of an organisation is to create space through which individuals can come together to address issues of mutual interest.
Community organising, which is having a moment in students’ unions, goes a step further and involves one to one listening sessions, which in turn allows for issues to be surfaced and power to be mapped, which in turn can build commitment toward solutions.
Leeds Beckett Students’ Union (LBSU) describes community organising as being about
“bringing people together to win change. This means building community-led solutions to big and small problems, that work for everyone.
Through community organising, we work together to make change on the issues that matter to you, from campaigning for better access and cheaper bus fares for students wherever you live in West Yorkshire, access to part-time work whilst you study, improvements to the way your course is timetabled, or long-term campaigns to improve student housing.
We know that students like you can shape the world around you and together, we put the power back into your hands to hold those responsible to account. By building positive relationships between communities, elected powerholders and business, we make sure everyone is heard and no one is left out. This is how we shift the balance of power, helping people come together across their differences, find common ground and win change.”
LBSU still has officers and academic representatives but their vision of community organising is an optimistic one which brings together listening, relationship building, and proximity to power. It has caught alight in the student movement partially because it centres students as agents in their own future, not passive recipients of union democracy.
What LBSU also articulate in that sentence is that the role of the Union is part of a wider team that involves students, communities, businesses, and power-holders. The Union is one amongst many which brings together ideas or organisational design and democratic function.
Design
Students’ unions of a certain size are generally structured by function. There is a single chief executive, heads of departments split between organisational functions, and then staff who manage and deliver those functions.
This theory borrows from Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy that organisations are most efficient with clearly defined hierarchies, codified roles and rules, efficient and well defined rules of engagement, and detailed policies and procedures.
In contrast to the likes of scientific management theory which prizes individual effectiveness Weber’s theory instead tries to set up an impersonal, rules driven, but effective systems wherein everyone knows their roles and they are measured on their ability to work within them.
Students’ unions for reasons of cultural norms tend not to break down individual staff member’s tasks into component parts and then carefully measure them as scientific management theory would hope. Instead, they are loose Weberian’s at heart that look at how their union works as an ecosystem through getting the most of the people within it.
Disconnects
The issue with this approach is that there is a potential disconnect between the students’ unions which want flatter, looser, and more community based democracy structures while wishing to maintain formal, hierarchical, and management based, internal bureaucracies.
It is entirely possible to imagine scenarios where: there is a mismatch between information gathered through democratic engagement and the capacity to act on it, an accountability gaps between students organising with communities and staff delivering work outside of them, and an inflexibility in issues which emerge from students which do not fit neatly into an organisational job role.
In the same way there is no single right way to organise students’ union democracy there is no single right way to organise students’ union bureaucracy either but there are plenty of theories to choose from.
- There is open systems theory of management which places emphasis on building the most efficient ways to get proximity between inputs, outputs, and finding harmony in the people that shape them.
- There is Herzberg’s human relations theory which emphasises individual satisfaction as the key to organisational success. This approach would look at how students’ unions can align staff motivations with the motivations of students that emerge from the union democracy.
- And there is the often vaunted but seldom tried anarchism into management ideas of flat structures, no hierarchies, and entire integration of student and organisation.
The structure that students’ unions choose for their management is almost besides the point. The bigger concern is the extent to which decision making and management are aligned.
Invest in a communitarian democracy but hierarchical organisational structure students will have lots of energy but little agency to make change. Invest in hierarchical decision making but flat management structure students may have a clear direction but nobody to steer their ideas and lead their change.
The question is then whether the management of a students’ union should shape its democracy or whether democracy should shape the management of the students’ union. As a fan of emergent theories it’s probably a bit of both.
Be open to change, don’t commit to a final path at all costs, and be prepared to change as people both within and outside the organisation do too.
