In this fascinating, theoretically informed case study of policy making, Jack R. Van Der Slik demonstrates partisan politics in action in Illinois. Specifically, he shows how major changes in governing state universities were enacted over the objections of members of the higher education community, who preferred to maintain the status quo.In 1991, Republican Governor Jim Edgar, enthusiastically aided by Lieutenant Governor Bob Kustra, began a political effort to decentralize the "system of systems," which had governed state universities since the 1960s. Despite partisan defeat of their plan...