Principles and Practice of American Politics
Classic and Contemporary Readings

Eighth Edition

Edited by:

Steven S. Smith - Arizona State University

Courses:
Introduction to American Government | Introduction to American Government

September 2024 | 680 pages | CQ Press

Combining timeless readings with cutting-edge, current selections, Principles and Practice of American Politics effectively animates today's institutions and political arrangements in the study of American Government and politics. Each selection is artfully framed by contextual headnotes, and many of the readings are written specifically for the volume.

The Eighth Edition includes readings that present institutions of majority rule, the nature of racial discrimination, the proper role of the court, and other issues that provide students an opportunity to think through and discuss their views on the future direction of American civic life.

Available Formats

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Preface

About The Editors

Chapter 1. Designing Institutions

Mancur Olson Jr.

1-1 From The Logic of Collective Action

Elinor Ostrom

1-2 Governing the Commons

Jane Mansbridge

1-3 What is Political Science For?

Chapter 2. The Constitutional Framework

James Madison

2-1 Federalist No. 10

James Madison

2-2 Federalist No. 51

Samuel Kernell

2-3 “The True Principles of Republican Government”: Reassessing James Madison’s Political Science

Chapter 3. Federalism

Donald F. Kettl

3-1 Federalism: Sorting Out Who Does What

Thad Kousser

3-2 How America’s “Devolution Revolution” Reshaped Its Federalism

Chapter 4. Civil Rights

Supreme Court of the United States

4-1 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Supreme Court of the United States

4-2 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

Supreme Court of the United States

4-3 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

Supreme Court of the United States

4-4 Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023)

Weaver and Prowse

4-5 Racial Authoritarianism in U.S. Democracy

Chapter 5. Civil Liberties

Geoffrey R. Stone

5-1 Free Speech and National Security

Supreme Court of the United States

5-2 Roe v. Wade (1973)

Supreme Court of the United States

5-3 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)

Gerald N. Rosenberg

5-4 The Real World of Constitutional Rights: The Supreme Court and the Implementation of the Abortion Decisions

Chapter 6. Congress

Sarah A. Binder

6-1 Legislating in Polarized Times

Frances E. Lee

6-2 Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign

Steven S. Smith

6-3 Beneath the Surface: Partisanship, Bipartisanship, and Committee Activity

Steven S. Smith

6-4 Disrupted: The Appropriations Process, Partisan Polarization, and Partisanship

Steven S. Smith

6-5 Diversifying: Gender, Race, and Congressional Representation

Steven S. Smith

6-6 Why 435? Reapportionment and the Size of the House

Chapter 7. The Presidency

Richard E. Neustadt

7-1 From Presidential Power

Samuel Kernell

7-2 From Going Public

William Howell

7-3 Power without Persuasion

Chapter 8. The Bureaucracy

James Q. Wilson

8-1 The Rise of the Bureaucratic State

Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz

8-2 Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms

Chapter 9. The Judiciary

Antonin Scalia

9-1 From A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law

Stephen Breyer

9-2 From Active Liberty

Alexander Hamilton

9-3 Federalist No. 78

Tracey George and Lee Epstein

9.4 On the Nature of Supreme Court Decision Making

Chapter 10. Public Opinion

Herbert Asher

10-1 Analyzing and Interpreting Polls

Alan I. Abramowitz

10-2 The Polarized Electorate

John Zaller

10-3 The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion

Joe Goldman, Lee Drutman, and Oscar Pocasangre

10-4 Democracy Hypocrisy: Examining America’s Fragile Democratic Convictions

Chapter 11. Voting, Campaigns, and Elections

Pew Research Center

11-1 Voter turnout, 2018-2022

Gary C. Jacobson

11-2 No Compromise: The Electoral Origins of Legislative Gridlock

Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels

11-3 Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government

Richard Hasen

11-4 Election Reform: Past, Present, and Future

Chapter 12. Political Parties

John H. Aldrich

12-1 From Why Parties?

Lee Drutman

12-2 Doom-Loop Partisanship

Lilliana Mason

12-3 Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

Chapter 13. Interest Groups

Richard L. Hall and Alan V. Deardorff

13-1 Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy

Lee Drutman

13-2 The Growth of Corporate Lobbying

Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens

13-3 Democracy in America?

Chapter 14. News Media

Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow

14-1 Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election

Andrew M. Guess

14-2 (Almost) Everything in Moderation: New Evidence on Americans' Online Media Diets

Daniel J. Moskowitz

14-3 Local News, Information, and the Nationalization of U.S. Elections

U.S. Constitution

Appendix: Constitution of the United States

"Principles and Practice of American Politics is a well-balanced reader covering all the major topics of an American Government course."

Blake Jones

Ohio Valley University

Key features

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

Twenty-eight new and updated essays encourage students to reflect on the continuing debates in American Politics. This new edition includes the most widely read chapter from Governing the Commons, by Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Supreme Court opinions on abortion, school desegregation, free speech and national security, and diversity in universities, a set of short essays on today’s Congress, and new readings on political identities, bureaucracy, interest groups, the media, and election reform.

KEY FEATURES:

Chapters follow a consistent organization by introducing readers to the interests, rules, and strategic contexts of a reading’s political action in a major national political forum.
Each selection is artfully framed by contextual headnotes to make them appropriate for classroom use.
Original readings written specifically for the volume give the book a coherent treatment of the performance of U.S. political institutions.
Readings can serve as a supplement or standalone text. For instructors using this text as a supplement, the collection of selected readings will animate the institutional processes described in your core text. For instructors using this text as the core reading material for the course, the collection of selected readings can stand alone and do not assume more than an elementary knowledge of American government and politics.