Substance versus politics: Through the dark mirror of governance reform

This article explores recent initiatives by the states to reform governance of public higher education. It synthesizes theoretical and empirical literature to suggest that richer understanding might result from "qualitative heuristic" treatment of multiple case studies. It proposes that data be analyzed to weigh the main and residual effects of political and instrumental goals of key actors in reform. Five exploratory case studies of state governance reform are summarized. Political factors were found to outweigh instrumental factors in most of the cases. The authors conclude with a discussion of fluidity in the political environment, noting that solutions seem to be continuously moving targets.