Logic now with a free supplement analyzing the midterm elections.Coming in December, this valuable supplement will provide an insider’s guide to the 2010 midterm elections. When placing your order, be sure to use the ISBN on this page to ensure that your students receive the supplement packaged FREE with their textbook.
The Logic of American Politics, 4th Edition
The logic of American politics? Are those snickers from your students as they deride the phrase an oxymoron? By helping them see that political institutions and practices are imperfect solutions to collective action problems, distinguished scholars Samuel Kernell and Gary C. Jacobson—and new coauthor Thad Kousser—reveal a rationale to the U.S. political system and give students a window through which they can not only view American politics but also come to understand it.
Known for its engaging narrative, the book’s new edition continues to weave historical context, current politics, and analytic concepts into a text that gently strengthens students’ theoretical understanding while hooking them with great storytelling. In order to make the argument fully accessible to a student audience, the new edition highlights passages that apply the collective action and institutional design themes presented in the introduction.
The fourth edition has been revised and updated throughout, and will include full coverage of the 2008 elections. Two major developments in the new edition deserve special note:
• a new section in the first chapter introduces students to a “toolkit” of institutional design concepts—command, veto, agenda control, voting rules, delegation—and examples of how they work.With this toolkit, students learn the concepts for exploring America’s governmental system in later chapters.
• with a fully revised final chapter, Logic looks forward to assess the implications of its argument for widely promoted reforms of policy and institutions.
Tables, figures, photographs, cartoons, bolded key terms, a glossary, annotated reading lists, review questions, and exercises help illustrate core ideas and aid in review and study. A series of thematic boxes further the book’s analytic framework:
• Logic of Politics examines the design of various political institutions in light of the objectives they were intended to achieve.
• Strategy and Choice shows how officeholders and those seeking to influence them employ institutions to advance their goals.
• Politics to Policy highlights how public policies reflect the institutions that produce them and evaluate institutional capacity to solve the nation’s problems.
For more information about The Logic of American Politics, 4th Edition, click here.
Debating Reform
As much as policy topics like abortion and same-sex marriage elicit spirited reactions from your students, aren’t you looking for ways to get students out of their partisan corners? Ellis and Nelson have found that debating concrete proposals to reforming the political system encourages their undergraduate students to leave ideology behind and instead, to sift through competing claims and evidence.
Connecting classroom conversation directly to political institutions, students not only grapple with reform ideas but also join the discussion without the crutch of spouting opinion. With pro and con pieces written specifically for this volume, students consider and evaluate arguments from top scholars, thoughtfully exploring the ways government could work better.
For more information about Debating Reform, click here. 
