Published: February 2021
Page Count: 478
ISBN (Digital): 978-1-4533-3793-6

This Land Is Your Land: Introduction to American Government and Politics

Version 1.1
By Martin Saiz and Jennifer L. De Maio

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Manual

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Key Features

Written with a bottom-up or "individual-up" view of the American political system.
Presents overall legal framework of the American political system, followed by the fundamental elements of the Constitution.
Includes chapters on political parties, interest groups, and the media to illuminate how these institutions connect citizens and their representatives and make civic participation cost effective.
Includes chapters on domestic and foreign policy to provide insight into how the government accomplishes its goals at home and abroad.
End-of-chapter summaries review main points, encourage critical reflection, and challenge readers to imagine how the American political system could become more democratic.

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This Land is Your Land: Introduction to American Government and Politics is suitable for United States government and politics or American government and politics courses at the undergraduate level at two- and four-year colleges and universities.

This Land Is Your Land: Introduction to American Government and Politics seeks to engage a wide variety of students. It serves as an accessible and comprehensive assessment of the American political system, written to help students understand and participate effectively in democratic governance. With a focus on critical analysis and practical guidance, the text explores issues through both historic and institutional contexts. It encourages readers to explore and better understand different levels of active citizenship so they may choose the path that is right for themselves. This text covers the full range of topics included in introductory and survey courses on American government and politics.

New in This Version

Version 1.1 includes updates to the Introduction, Public Opinion, Citizen Participation and Voting, Parties, Congress and Presidency chapters, including new names, dates, examples, and data on attitudes and voting patterns related to race, ethnicity, gender, relation and party affiliation. A new 2,500-word introduction to the Presidency chapter summarizes the political context of the 2020 election including the Mueller investigation; the first impeachment of the President and his acquittal by the US Senate; the COVID-19 pandemic, the shootings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the Black Lives Matter social protest movement; the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett; the results of and legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election; and its legal challenges. The chapter on Congress is updated to include the results of the Senate run-off elections in Georgia and the future of the US Congress. Additional updates include coverage of the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the Congressional confirmation of the elections of President Biden and Vice President Harris, and their subsequent inaugurations.

1.1 The Land, the People, and the Economy

1.2 The Idea of Popular Sovereignty

1.3 The Impact of Government on Daily Life

1.4 What Is Politics?

1.5 What Is Democracy?

1.6 Understanding American Politics: The Analytical Framework

1.7 What Can I Do?

1.8 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 2: The Founding and the Constitution: Creating a Nation

2.1 Constitutional Engineering

2.2 Politics in the Colonies

2.3 The Articles of Confederation

2.4 The Constitutional Convention

2.5 What the Framers Framed

2.6 Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

2.7 The Living Constitution

2.8 What Can I Do?

2.9 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 3: Federalism: Two Governments in the Same Area

3.1 Why Federalism?

3.2 Federalism and the Constitution

3.3 The Slow Growth of the National Government’s Power

3.4 The Policy Effects of Federalism

3.5 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Federalism

3.6 What Can I Do?

3.7 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 4: Civil Liberties: Necessary for Democracy to Exist

4.1 Civil Liberties vs. Civil Rights

4.2 Civil Liberties as a National Discourse

4.3 First Amendment Rights

4.4 The Second Amendment and Right to Bear Arms

4.5 Rights of the Accused

4.6 Right to Privacy

4.7 Government Responsibility vs. Individual Freedoms

4.8 What Can I Do?

4.9 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 5: Civil Rights: Necessary for Equal Treatment

5.1 Inequality and the Law

5.2 The Struggle for Racial Equality

5.3 The Struggle for Gender Equality

5.4 The Struggle for Ethnic and Cultural Equality

5.5 The Struggle for Marginalized Groups

5.6 Slow but Steady Progress

5.7 What Can I Do?

5.8 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 6: Public Opinion: Even the Busiest American Has One

6.1 A Mob or a Whole Greater Than Its Parts?

6.2 Measuring Public Opinion

6.3 Where Do Public Opinions Come From?

6.4 Effects of Social Background on Public Opinion

6.5 Does Public Opinion Matter?

6.6 What Can I Do?

6.7 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 7: Citizen Participation and Voting: America Checks the Fluids

7.1 The Logic of Political Participation

7.2 The Framers’ Understanding of the Problem of Moral Hazard

7.3 Regulating the Electoral Process

7.4 Is Voting Rational?

7.5 Deciding How to Vote: The Problem of Adverse Selection

7.6 Does It Matter Who Participates?

7.7 What Can I Do?

7.8 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 8: Political Parties: Making Politics Cost Effective

8.1 Political Parties and Popular Participation

8.2 Parties and Collective Action in Government

8.3 Party Identification among the Voters

8.4 Parties as Service Institutions

8.5 Why Are There Only Two Major Parties?

8.6 Are the Parties Becoming More Radical?

8.7 Building and Rebuilding National Majorities

8.8 What Can I Do?

8.9 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 9: Interest Groups: Effective Participation with an Upper-Class Bias

9.1 Federalist 10 and the Rise of Interest Groups

9.2 Democracy and Group Participation

9.3 The Upper-Class and Business Biases of the Interest Group System

9.4 Interest Group Formation, Mobilization, and Maintenance

9.5 Change in the Interest Group System

9.6 Lobbying: How Interest Groups Influence Policy

9.7 What Can I Do?

9.8 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 10: Media: Biased or a Business?

10.1 Mass Media Today

10.2 The Evolution of the Mass Media

10.3 The Role of Media

10.4 Media as the Fourth Branch of Government

10.5 Understanding the Relationship among Media, Government, and the American Public

10.6 What Can I Do?

10.7 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 11: The U.S. Congress: We Love Our Representative, but Not the Institution

11.1 District Representation, National Representation, and the Electoral Connection

11.2 Congress and the Constitution

11.3 Getting to Congress and Staying There

11.4 Congress Works in Committees

11.5 Party Leadership in the House and the Senate: The Forces of Centralization

11.6 What Can I Do?

11.7 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 12: The President: Hoping for a Hero

12.1 The Constitution and the Presidency: An Invitation to Struggle

12.2 Modern Presidential Government

12.3 What Makes a President Popular?

12.4 Presidential Success and Timing

12.5 What Can I Do?

12.6 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 13: Bureaucracy: Who Is Really Doing the Work?

13.1 What Is Bureaucracy?

13.2 The Development of the Bureaucracy

13.3 Major Elements and Roles of the Federal Bureaucracy

13.4 Roles of the Federal Bureaucracy

13.5 Understanding Bureaucracies

13.6 Policy Implementation and the Principal-Agent Problem

13.7 Who Does the Bureaucracy Work For?

13.8 What Can I Do?

13.9 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 14: The Federal Courts: Unelected but Powerful

14.1 The American Judicial System

14.2 The Development of the Federal Courts

14.3 Federalism and the American Courts

14.4 The Supreme Court in Action

14.5 Judicial Selection

14.6 Democracy and the Courts

14.7 The Politics of the Apolitical Branch

14.8 What Can I Do?

14.9 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 15: Domestic Policy: Taking Care of Things at Home

15.1 Making and Evaluating Public Policy

15.2 Generic Policy Solutions

15.3 Economic Policy

15.4 Social Policy

15.5 Trade-Offs between Economic and Social Welfare

15.6 What Can I Do?

15.7 What’s the Alternative?

Chapter 16: Foreign Policy: Engaging in the Global Community

16.1 Foreign Policy Explored

16.2 Key Ideas and Players in U.S. Foreign Policy

16.3 Setting the Foreign Policy Agenda

16.4 Tools of Statecraft

16.5 Challenges to U.S. Foreign Policy

16.6 What Can I Do?

16.7 What’s the Alternative?

Appendix A: The Constitution of the United States

A.1 Article I

A.2 Article II

A.3 Article III

A.4 Article IV

A.5 Article V

A.6 Article VI

A.7 Article VII

A.8 Bill of Rights

A.9 Additional Amendments to the Constitution

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Martin Saiz

California State University - Northridge

Martin Saiz (PhD University of Colorado at Boulder) is Professor of Political Science and the former Chair of the Political Science Department at California State University, Northridge. Martin formerly taught with the Department of Government and International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining academia, Martin directed small town and neighborhood community service centers for the Center for Community Development and Design at the University of Colorado at Denver. In that capacity, he helped local organizations develop problem-solving capacities to assist neighborhood revitalization projects. Martin was subsequently appointed to the Denver Planning Commission and served two four-year terms during which he developed insights into the political process gained only from the inside.

Martin writes extensively on issues of urban politics, political parties, economic development, and education policy. His articles have been published in the Journal of Politics, Urban Affairs Review, Political Research Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, Economic Development Quarterly, The Journal of Urban Affairs, California Policy Issues Annual, Thought & Action, and The Higher Education Journal of the National Education Association, as well as many other books and journals.

Jennifer L. De Maio

California State University - Northridge

Jennifer L. De Maio (PhD UCLA) is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Northridge. Jennifer’s research focuses on African politics, specifically on ethnic civil wars and conflict management. She is the author of Confronting Ethnic Conflict: The Role of Third Parties in Managing Africa's Civil Wars. Jennifer has also published and presented papers on elections and the use of social media, transnationalized violence, the relationship between urban space and conflict management, women and conflict, and sustainable development in Africa, including the 2019 co-edited volume Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa: Problems, Perspectives, and Prospects. She is currently working on a project about the politics of decolonizing language in African Studies. Before beginning a career in academia, Jennifer worked as a journalist for ABC News and NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation.

Jennifer brings a unique perspective to the Introduction to American Government and Politics course that incorporates research from comparative politics and international relations. She uses the classroom as a stage, on which the students are "spect-actors" who are actively involved in the learning process.