Novices to the study of politics find the American political system complicated, even mystifying or infuriating. They may have strongly held opinions on a number of political issues, but no systematic way—no logic—for thinking about how and why the system works the way it does. And new to the discipline, they have no clear sense of how political scientists approach the study of government. Distinguished scholars Samuel Kernell and Gary C. Jacobson give students a powerful way to think about politics, while offering an accessible entrée into the analytic study of American government.

A Logical Approach that Simplifies
Conveying how the American political system is both extraordinary and complex, the authors explain in a simple and straightforward way that there is a rationale embedded in the U.S. political system. This underlying logic helps students see why political institutions are structured the way they are, and why the politicians who occupy them, and the citizens who monitor and respond to their actions, behave as they do. Why were the Framers able to create the Constitution and compromise on a system of checks and balances? The rationale behind the Framers including a Bill of Rights to the Constitution can be used to discern the reasons behind today’s members of Congress legislating intelligence reform. Institutions evolve and new political actors emerge, but the logic of the political system remains.

In choosing and maintaining a democratic form of government, a nation as large and diverse as the United States faces enormous challenges. Kernell and Jacobson analyze political institutions and practices as imperfect solutions to problems facing people who need to act collectively. Throughout the text, the authors highlight these collective action problems, including the conflict over values and interests and the costs associated with finding and agreeing on a course of action. They describe how the choices made to resolve problems at one moment affect politics in the future, long after the original issues have faded. They emphasize the strategic nature of political action, from the Framers’ careful drafting of the Constitution to contemporary politicians’ strategic efforts to shape policy according to their own preferences.

The logic that Kernell and Jacobson explain and use as their touchstone in every section of the text gives students an intuitive way to view all of American institutional development. Encouraging them to move beyond memorization of facts, The Logic of American Politics gets students to think through both the limits and possibilities of American politics.

A Writing Style that Engages
In The Logic of American Politics, Kernell and Jacobson employ a narrative style, drawing on the rich story line of American history to explain how and why our political system has developed the way it has. Core concepts are introduced in clear-cut yet engaging prose and applied to a wealth of political and real-world examples. Witty at times and fully up to date, the text features plentiful and colorful stories that illuminate and animate the subject. The authors are always aware that their audience is new to the study of political science, but believe that the American government course is the ideal time to expose students to exemplary research and writing.

Features that Count
The intelligible logic of American politics is analyzed further in three sets of thematic boxes that appear throughout the text:

• Logic of Politics boxes dissect the design of various political institutions in light of the objectives they were intended to achieve. In the Civil Liberties chapter, for example, a box examines how governments crack down on dissent in wartime.
• Strategy and Choice boxes show how officeholders and those seeking to influence them employ institutions to advance their goals. For example, a box in the Bureaucracy chapter describes how defense contractor Rockwell maintained support for the B-1 bomber by subcontracting the work across hundreds of congressional districts.
• Politics to Policy boxes highlight how public policies reflect the institutions that produce them and evaluate institutional capacity to solve the nation’s problems. “Pollution Knows No Borders” in the Federalism chapter, for instance, looks at the necessity of national regulation of air quality.

Additional Pedagogy that Aids in Critical Thinking

• Thematic questions at the beginning of each chapter serve both to preview important themes and to get students thinking critically. A few examples include: Congressional incumbents rarely lose elections. Why then are they obsessed with the electoral implications of nearly everything they do? Or, why does a nation as diverse as the United States sustain only two major political parties? And, does America’s constitutional system impede or promote the cause of civil rights?
• Tightly woven vignettes open each chapter, telling a great story while imparting important points about how the book’s approach relates to chapter material. For example, the rush of organized interests to reframe their groups’ interests in light of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to better take advantage of government funding sets the stage for the Interest Groups chapter.
• Abundant graphics—tables, figures, charts, photographs, illustrations, and cartoons—thoroughly updated for the third edition, illustrate and expand textual material while elegantly displaying an array of important data. Richly written by the authors, captions exemplify both points of discussion and thematic concepts.
• Key terms are defined in boldface on first use, summarized at chapter end (with page numbers), and defined in a glossary at the back of the book.
• Useful review aids, many new to this edition, conclude each chapter. Annotated suggested reading lists, ideas for relevant films and novels relating to chapter material, and a sampling of learning and study features that can be used on the accompanying Logic website such as review questions and exercises, give students many ways to review and study.

Revisions that Enhance
All chapters include new material that updates and thoroughly freshens up content and coverage. Readers will appreciate crisp and pointed treatment of policy changes and political developments of the Bush Administration as well as analysis of the recent campaigns and elections of 2004. Plus the far-reaching implications of actions taken in response to 9/11, including bureaucratic and intelligence reorganization and civil rights and liberties controversies, are given measured scrutiny and examination.

In addition to comprehensive updating, the authors have reorganized sections to improve flow and include new headings to offer students additional signposts that further highlight key ideas and themes. Most importantly, the authors spend more time in the introduction explaining such foundational concepts as prisoner’s dilemma, coordination, free riding, and principal-agency. The authors walk students through a greater number of political examples to ensure that students can comfortably apply collective action themes to topical chapters. As well, they discuss at greater length how concepts link to one another so students can see how each concept is a distinct and important part of this systematic way of thinking.

ISBN: 978-0-87289-904-9

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Preface
A Note to Students

1. The Logic of American Politics
Constitutions and Governments
Collective Action Problems
The Costs of Collective Action
Overcoming Problems of Collective Action
Representative Government
The Work of Government
Mitigating “Popular Passion”

Part I. The Nationalization of Politics

2. The Constitution
The Road to Independence
America’s First Constitution: The Articles of Confederation
Drafting a New Constitution
The Fight for Ratification
The Theory Underlying the Constitution
The Constitution: Born of Sweet Reason or Politics?

3. Federalism
American-Style Federalism
Federalism and the Constitution
The Logic of Nationalization
The Paths to Nationalization
Modern Federalism
Federalism: A Byproduct of National Policy

4. Civil Rights
What Are Civil Rights?
The Civil Rights of African Americans
The Politics of Black Civil Rights
Rights for Hispanics
Equal Rights for Women
Gay Rights
Emerging Rights: The Disabled, the Elderly, Parents
Challenging Tyranny

5. Civil Liberties
Writing Rights and Liberties into the Constitution
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of the Press
Freedom of Religion
Criminal Rights
Privacy
Emerging Bill of Rights Issues: Guns and Property
Assessing Civil Liberties as Public Policy

Part II. The Institutions of Government

6. The Congress
Congress in the Constitution
Congress and Electoral Politics
The Basic Problems of Legislative Organization
Organizing Congress
Making Laws
Evaluating Congress

7. The Presidency
The President in the Constitution
The Nineteenth-Century Presidency
The Modern Presidency
Presidents as Strategic Actors

8. The Bureaucracy
The Development of the Federal Bureaucracy
An Expanding Government
Bureaucracy in Action
Who Controls the Bureaucracy?
Reinventing Government?

9. The Federal Judiciary
Setting the Stage for Judicial Review
Three Eras of the Court
The Structure of the Federal Judiciary
The Supreme Court’s Place in the Separation of Powers
The Federal Judiciary in National Policy Making

Part III. The Public’s Influence on National Policy

10. Public Opinion
What is 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

11.Voting, Campaigns, and Elections
The Logic of Elections
The Right to Vote
Who Uses the Right to Vote
How Do Voters Decide?
Election Campaigns
The Logic of Elections Revisited

12. Political Parties
The Constitution’s Unwanted Offspring
The Development and Evolution of the Party Systems
The Survival (Revival?) of the Parties
Expediency Persists

13. Interest Groups
The Logic of Lobbying
The Origins of Interest Group Politics in America
Contemporary Interest Groups
What Do Interest Groups Do?
Interest Group Politics: Controversial and Thriving

14. The News Media
Development of the News Business
News as a Consumer Product
The Politics of News Making
Strategic Relations between Politicians and Reporters
Communication: Fundamental to Democracy

Part IV. Conclusion

15. The Dilemmas of Institution Reform
The Biases of American Institutions
The Tricky Business of Institutional Reform
What Can Individual Citizens Do?

Reference Materials
Declaration of Independence
Articles of Confederation
Constitution of the United States
Federalist No. 10
Federalist No. 51
Presidents, Vice Presidents, Speakers, and Chief Justices, 1789-2005
Map of Congressional Districts
Political Party Affiliations in Congress and the Presidency, 1789-2005
Summary of Presidential Elections, 1789-2004
The American Economy

Notes
Glossary
Index

“This is an excellent book. It covers important issues accurately, with balance, and it gently undermines a lot of urban myths about politics. The book is single-minded in a good way: the authors make an argument and they stick to it. The result is a clean, consistent text that offers deep understanding to students of American government. This is easily the best textbook on the market. I am proud to use The Logic of American Politics in my class.”

- Michael Burton, Ohio University

"I think this is perhaps the best introductory chapter I’ve read in an American government textbook. Most texts claim to have a theoretical bent or some sort of recurring theme structuring the entire volume, but fail in their application of the theme. Logic, however, succeeds in creating a truly integrated theoretical frame with which to study American politics."

- Timothy Nokken, University of Houston

“Without a doubt, The Logic of American Politics is the best American government text on the market.”

- Christopher Bonneau, University of Pittsburgh

Samuel Kernell is professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, where he has taught since 1977. Previously, he taught at the University of Mississippi and the University of Minnesota. Kernell’s research interests focus on the presidency and American political history. His books include Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 4th edition, Principles and Practice of American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 4th edition (edited with Steven S. Smith), an edited collection of essays, James Madison: The Theory and Practice of Republican Government, and Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, 2nd edition.

Gary C. Jacobson is distinguished professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, where he has taught since 1979. He previously taught at Trinity College, the University of California at Riverside, Yale University, and Stanford University. Jacobson specializes in the study of U.S. elections, parties, interest groups, and Congress. He is the author of Money in Congressional Elections, The Politics of Congressional Elections, 8th edition, The Electoral Origins of Dividend Government: Competition in the U.S.House Elections, 1946-1988, and A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People, 2nd edition, and is coauthor with Samuel Kernell of Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, 2nd edition. Jacobson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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The Logic of American Politics Companion Website
http://college.cqpress.com/logic

Developed by Tim Groeling of the University of California, Los Angeles, this site combines valuable study materials with creative activities and useful materials that go far beyond the text, and it’s all free with the third edition.

• Skill Set: Interactive exercises introduce or review basic social science skills, such as reading tables and graphs, analyzing polls results, and interpreting maps and organizational charts.
• Study: Chapter summaries, learning objectives, and review questions.
• Quiz: Greatly enhanced quiz software offers multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions for each chapter, allowing students to self-test and receive immediate results by question type and by chapter section to help them pinpoint studying for midterm and final exams. Students can now email quiz grades directly to their instructors.
• Exercises: Drawing on a wealth of information such as CQ’s Politics in America and CQ Electronic Library’s Supreme Court Collection, students are challenged to question and research online resources from interest groups influence on members of Congress to analyzing declassified presidential primary source materials.
• Explore: Students can link to a range of sites to observe Congress in action, listen in on White House conversations, or compare today’s tabloid journalism with the yellow journalism of a bygone era.
• CQ Weekly: Unique to the Logic site, CQ offers current news stories from Washington’s most authoritative source.

Instructors’ Resources
Material that will save you time, help your students, and enrich your lectures.

• Test Bank: 900 updated and revised questions, separated into factual and conceptual multiple choice, short answer, and essay, form the basis for exams. Written by Charles Anthony Smith of the University of Miami, the test bank is available as a text file, and in Respondus—our flexible and easy-to-use test generation software that allows you to customize exams.
• Transparencies: Color graphics from the book have been enlarged and presented on acetates for overhead projection.
• PowerPoint slides: Created by Audrey Haynes of the University of Georgia, these slide shows correspond to each chapter in the book and highlight key concepts. Notes are included to further enhance classroom presentation. Depending on an instructor’s teaching style, adopters can now opt to use a full version of the slides for maximum lecture outlining and multiple talking points, or choose a condensed version that is pared back to core concepts.
• Instructor’s CD-ROM: Materials from the online study guide (chapter objectives, summaries, and quizzes) are also provided as Word or WordPerfect files for ease of reference and reproduction for classroom distribution. Figures and tables from the text are provided in electronic formats that allow you to import into test questions, create hand-outs, or add to your PowerPoint presentations.
• Instructor’s Resources Online: Take the book’s material further with a wealth of additional resources including tables and figures that feature supplemental data not found in the book, simulations, syllabi, sample class assignments, and new to the third edition, Instructor’s Manual material that includes discussion questions, fact sheets, and additional examples and talking points for enhancing lectures or jump-starting small-group settings.
• CQ Weekly: CQ Press will provide a free 6-month subscription to professors who adopt The Logic of American Politics (subject to minimum quantities). Stay up to date on current developments and animate your lectures with topical and insightful analysis from the same source on which political Washington relies.