Power Centres in Governance of Higher Education

Abstract

Rules and rationalities are the bases of analysis in rules determined governance model. Power as the ability to influence decision-making and the influence of power centres are not sufficiently examined in the literature on the governance of higher education. The article locates various centres of power in the functioning of universities and how they affect decision-making. The study is located in a large province of India with a population of 130 million with over a dozen of universities and over 700 colleges affiliated with the universities. The study finds that conflict among power centres affects the decision-making and determines governance in an amorphous way. The leadership challenge is to create a communicative process by which the conflicts are resolved and unity of purposes of governance is established. However, conflict resolution itself is embedded in social and political structures. From a case study of the governance of a province in India, I observe the chaos in the governance of universities. However, depending on the intensity of the conflict or the resolution of the conflict the experiences of governance may vary in different contexts. I argue that power centres in the governance of higher education are useful instrument to study the governance of universities.