NURS 524 Week 4 Political Power in Nursing Paper Example

Political Power in Nursing: From Expert Knowledge at the Bedside to Changed Words in Policy

Power, in the sense Kelly and Tazbir (2014) use, is the ability to influence others and bring about change, and it rests on sources that can be named. Some power comes from a position, which is legitimate power. Some comes from knowledge and skill, which is expert power. Some comes from being trusted and admired, which is referent power, and some from relationships with others who hold influence, which is connection power. Nurses hold more of these sources than they often recognize. They possess deep expert knowledge of how policy decisions play out at the bedside, they are consistently among the most trusted professionals, and they make up the largest workforce in health care. The question for this paper is why that combination has not always produced proportionate influence, and how it can.

Nursing's Power Today

Nursing's present influence is real but uneven. Nashwan et al. (2026), drawing on global workforce estimates, argue that shortages of nurses and midwives should be understood as the result of systemic, political, economic and gendered determinants, not only as numerical gaps, noting that about 33.3 million nurses were estimated worldwide in 2023 even as shortages and maldistribution persisted. Their framing matters because it moves workforce problems out of administration and into politics, where nurses must participate if the problems are to be solved. When nurses describe staffing crises only as unit-level burdens, they are using expert power at the smallest scale. The same knowledge, organized and brought to the people who write the rules, becomes political power.

Organized Expertise as Political Influence

Recent evidence shows what organized expertise can achieve. De Raeve et al. (2026) traced a European Parliament report on the health workforce crisis through its drafts, amendments and final text, alongside position papers and records of engagement by nursing organizations. They found that coordinated nursing lobbying contributed to how the problem was framed and how compromise amendments were negotiated, and that its influence could be seen in changed language, including the removal of doctor-led hierarchical terms, the protection of nursing-specific terminology and the consolidation of advanced practice nursing in the final report. The authors describe lobbying, when sustained, evidence-informed and well timed, as a legitimate form of nursing political leadership.

Influence also carries risk, and the future of nursing power depends on facing it. Bernardino and Abul (2026) studied the narratives of ten Filipino nurse activists who moved from enduring poor working conditions and low pay to organized advocacy. Mentors, early encounters with injustice and small acts of defiance shaped their entry into activism, while silence, hesitation and disapproval from employers or families marked the costs. Their stories are a reminder that political power is exercised by people who accept some risk, and that mentors make it easier for others to follow.

Barriers to Nursing's Power

If nurses hold so many sources of power, why has their influence lagged? Kelly and Tazbir (2014) point to several barriers that remain familiar. Many nurses see politics as distasteful or outside their role, preferring to focus on patient care, which leaves policy to others who may understand bedside realities less well. Workloads leave little time for meetings, hearings or organizational work. Nursing's voice is also divided among many specialty organizations, and a divided voice is easier to ignore. Gender and hierarchy play a part as well, since health systems have long placed physicians at the top of decision making. The Philippine activists in the study by Bernardino and Abul (2026) faced a sharper form of these barriers, including institutional disapproval and political threats, yet they found that mentors and shared purpose helped them persist. The lesson for nurses in the United States is that the barriers are real but not fixed. They yield to organization, time protected for policy work, and leaders who model political engagement for staff in their own daily practice.

Nursing's Future Influence

Nursing's future influence will depend on whether nurses build the political competence that the European case describes and the mentoring relationships that the Philippine nurses relied on. In the United States, that means nurses serving on hospital and community boards, commenting on proposed staffing and scope-of-practice rules, and joining professional organizations whose combined voice carries weight. As an MSN-prepared leader, I plan two concrete steps: joining my state nurses association's legislative committee, and offering to mentor one staff nurse each year through a first experience of policy involvement, such as attending a legislative hearing on nurse staffing.

A Christian Perspective

Proverbs 31:8-9 calls believers to "open your mouth for the mute" and to "defend the rights of the poor and needy" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). For Christian nurses, political power is not a goal in itself but a means of speaking for patients and communities who cannot speak for themselves in the rooms where decisions are made.

References

Bernardino, G. D., & Abul, R. C. (2026). Voices on fire: Narratives on nurse activism amid power dynamics in the Philippines. Nursing Inquiry, 33(4), Article e70169. https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.70169

De Raeve, P., Ballotta, M., Rafferty, A. M., & Žilić, I. (2026). Nursing lobbying and EU health workforce policy: A qualitative policy analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.70763

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Kelly, P., & Tazbir, J. (2014). Essentials of nursing leadership and management (3rd ed.). Delmar Cengage Learning.

Nashwan, A. J., Ben-Ahmed, H. E., Palese, A., Abujaber, A. A., Mohamed, M. G., Alrimawi, I., Saleh, M. S. M., El-Banna, M. M., & Squires, A. (2026). Systemic and political determinants of the global nursing and midwifery shortages: A discussion based on human resources for health data. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 184, Article 105680. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2026.105680