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The Logic of American Politics
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The Logic of American Politics

Tenth Edition
Available with:


March 2021 | 784 pages | CQ Press
Why does the American political system work the way it does?

Find the answers in The Logic of American Politics. This bestselling text arms students with a "toolkit" of institutional design concepts—command, veto, agenda control, voting rules, and delegation—to help them comprehend how the American political system was designed and why it works the way it does. The authors build students' critical thinking through a simple yet powerful idea: politics is about solving collective action problems. This thoroughly updated Tenth Edition considers the most recent events and data, including rising political polarization, the country’s reaction to changing demographics, and Americans’ growing emotional involvement in politics. With a fresh analysis of the 2020 election results, this bestseller provides students the tools they need to make sense of the government they have.

This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package. Contact your SAGE representative to request a demo.
  • Digital Option / Courseware
    SAGE Vantage is an intuitive digital platform that delivers this text’s content and course materials in a learning experience that offers auto-graded assignments and interactive multimedia tools, all carefully designed to ignite student engagement and drive critical thinking. Built with you and your students in mind, it offers simple course set-up and enables students to better prepare for class. Learn more.
    • Assignable Video with Assessment
      Assignable video (available with SAGE Vantage) is tied to learning objectives and curated exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life. Watch a sample video now.
  • LMS Cartridge (formerly known as SAGE Coursepacks): Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site.  Learn more.
  • CQ Press Lecture Spark: Designed to save you time and ignite student engagement, these free weekly lecture launchers focus on current event topics tied to key concepts in American Government. Access this week’s topic.

 
Preface
 
A Note to Students
 
Chapter 1. The Logic of American Politics
The Importance of Institutional Design

 
Constitutions and Governments

 
Collective Action Problems

 
The Costs of Collective Action

 
Representative Government

 
The Work of Government

 
Conclusion: Collective Action and America’s Constitution

 
 
Part I. The Nationalization of Politics
 
Chapter 2. The Constitution
The Road to Independence

 
America’s First Constitution: The Articles of Confederation

 
Drafting a New Constitution

 
Features of the Constitution

 
Substantive Issues

 
The Fight for Ratification

 
The Theory Underlying the Constitution

 
Designing Institutions for Collective Action: The Framers’ Tool Kit

 
Assessing the Constitution’s Performance in Today’s American Politics

 
 
Chapter 3. Federalism
American-Style Federalism

 
Federalism and the Constitution

 
The Paths to Nationalization

 
Modern Federalism

 
Evolving Federalism: A By-product of National Policy

 
 
Chapter 4. Civil Rights
What Are Civil Rights?

 
The Civil Rights of African Americans

 
The Politics of Black Civil Rights

 
The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement

 
 
Chapter 5. Civil Liberties
Nationalization of Civil Liberties

 
Writing Rights and Liberties into the Constitution

 
Freedom of Speech

 
Freedom of the Press

 
Freedom of Religion

 
Gun Rights

 
Criminal Rights

 
Privacy

 
Civil Liberties as Public Policy

 
 
Part II. The Institutions of Government
 
Chapter 6. Congress
Congress in the Constitution

 
Congress and Electoral Politics

 
Who Serves in Congress?

 
Basic Problems of Legislative Organization

 
Organizing Congress

 
Making Laws

 
Evaluating Congress

 
 
Chapter 7. The Presidency
The Historical Presidency

 
The Modern Presidency

 
The President as Commander in Chief and Head of State

 
The President as Chief Executive

 
The President as Legislator

 
Going Public

 
The Institutional Presidency

 
Conclusion

 
 
Chapter 8. The Bureaucracy
The Development of the Federal Bureaucracy

 
An Expanding Government

 
Bureaucracy in Action

 
Who Controls the Bureaucracy?

 
Bureaucratic Reform: A Hardy Perennial

 
 
Chapter 9. The Federal Judiciary
Setting the Stage for Judicial Review

 
Three Eras of the Court’s Judicial Review

 
The Structure of the Federal Judiciary

 
Judicial Decision-Making

 
The Supreme Court’s Place in the Separation of Powers

 
Does a Politicized Judiciary Alter Separation of Powers?

 
 
Part III. The Public’s Influence on National Policy
 
Chapter 10. Public Opinion
What Is Public Opinion?

 
Measuring Public Opinion

 
The Origins of Public Opinion

 
Is Public Opinion Meaningful?

 
The Content of Public Opinion

 
Effects of Background on Public Opinion

 
Public Opinion: A Vital Component of American Politics

 
 
Chapter 11. Voting, Campaigns, and Elections
The Logic of Elections

 
The Slow Expansion of the Right to Vote

 
Who Uses the Right to Vote?

 
The Basic Necessities of Election Campaigns: Candidates and Messages

 
Campaign Money

 
The Logic of Elections Revisited

 
 
Chapter 12. Political Parties
The Constitution’s Unwanted Offspring

 
Development and Evolution of the Party Systems

 
Revival of the Parties: A Sixth Party System?

 
Expediency Persists

 
 
Chapter 13. Interest Groups
The Logic of Lobbying

 
The Origins of Interest Group Politics in the United States

 
Contemporary Interest Groups

 
What Do Interest Groups Do?

 
Interest Groups and Elections

 
Interest Group Politics: Controversial and Thriving

 
 
Chapter 14. Media
Development of the News Business

 
Legacy News as a Consumer Product: How the News Gets “Made”

 
Demand for and Effects of News

 
News Media as the “Fourth Branch”

 
Politician–Press Relations Then and Now

 
 
Part IV. Conclusion
 
Chapter 15. Is There a Logic to American Policy?
Free Riding and Health Care

 
The Obstacles to Taking Domestic Action to Stop Global Climate Change

 
The Logic of a Government Shutdown

 
The Prisoner’s Dilemma of Entitlement Reform

 
The Success and Failure of Collective Action: A Tale of Two Tax Reforms

 
Conclusion

 
 
Reference Material
 
Glossary
 
Notes
 
Index
 
About the Authors

Supplements

Instructor Resource Site
edge.sagepub.com/kernell10e


For additional information, custom options, or to request a personalized walkthrough of these resources, please contact your sales representative.


LMS cartridge included with this title for use in Blackboard, Canvas, Brightspace by Desire2Learn (D2L), and Moodle

The LMS cartridge makes it easy to import this title’s instructor resources into your learning management system (LMS). These resources include:

  • Test banks
  • Editable chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides
  • Sample course syllabi
  • Lecture notes
  • All tables and figures from the textbook 
Don’t use an LMS platform?

You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site.
Student Resource Site

edge.sagepub.com/kernell10e

 

The open-access Student Study Site makes it easy for students to maximize their study time, anywhere, anytime. It offers flashcards that strengthen understanding of key terms and concepts, as well as learning objectives that reinforce the most important material.

Key features

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

  • The new edition is available as a digital option through SAGE Vantage, an intuitive digital platform that offers auto-graded assignments and interactive multimedia tools—including video—all designed to enable students to better prepare for class. Learn more.
  • Up-to-date 2020 election coverage and analysis—particularly in the chapters on Congress, the presidency, and political parties—provides students with an up-to-date understanding of the results of the 2020 elections.
  • Updated coverage of the following topics has been added: the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on federalism, the economy, the 2020 elections, and educational inequalities; mass protests following killing of George Floyd and its connection to other protest movements; environmental policies and issues; and detailed analysis of the impeachment of President Trump.  
  • An examination of President Trump’s leadership style provides students with insights on how his presidency differs from past presidencies and encourages students to reconsider the nature of presidential leadership.     
  • An increased emphasis on the collective action framework strengthens the authors approach of helping students to better understand the material.
KEY FEATURES:
  • Chapter-opening vignettes draw in students while effectively pointing to a chapter’s main themes.
  • A set of feature boxes strengthens the book’s analytic approach:
    • Logic of Politics boxes examine the design of various political institutions in light of the objectives they were intended to achieve.
    • Strategy and Choice boxes show how officeholders and those seeking to influence them employ institutions to advance their goals.
    • Politics to Policy boxes highlight how public policies reflect the institutions that produce them and evaluate institutional capacity to solve the nation’s problems.
  • The concluding chapter on policymaking examines the noticeable logic that guides American policy. Students glean insights into the sources of policy problems, identify possible solutions, and realize why agreement on those solutions is often so hard to achieve.
  • Robust pedagogical features strengthen the text’s analytical approach: boxed features, maps, tables, and figures make for a rich experience as students learn to analyze data; new learning objectives provide measurable takeaways; and more than 200 carefully chosen photographs bring historical and contemporary details to life.
Vantage Reference: 
The Logic of American Politics - Vantage Digital Option

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