Undergraduate Political Science Resources
This resource is maintained by Joe Braunwarth at Grossmont College. All rights reserved. He may be contacted at joe.braunwarth@gcccd.edu.
American Political Science Resources
The following are readings in which students who are enrolled in or interested in U.S. Government and Politics, political science majors, or potential majors, may be interested. They are Sub-Divided into the Following Subsections:
Section One: Constitutional Foundations
1. Overview
2. Constitution
4. Civil Rights
5. Federalism
Section Two: Participation
Section Three: Institutions
10. The Media
11. The Legislature
12. The Presidency and The Bureaucracy
13. The Judiciary
Section Four: Issues in U.S. Government and Politics
14. Foreign Policy
15. Economic and Social Policy
Section One: Constitutional Foundations
References
Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.
Barlett, Donald L. and James B. Steele “Big Money & Politics: How the Little Guy Gets Crunched” Time Magazine Vol. 155 No. 5. February 7. 2000.
Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952. Reprinted by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd, 2001.
Chomsky, Noam. Rogue States: The rule of force in world affairs, Pluto books, 2000
Cox, W. Michael and Richard Alm. Myths of Rich and Poor. Basic Books, 2000.
Dahl, Robert A. Who Governs? New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961
Edward N. Wolff, Top Heavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in the United States. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1995.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Owl Books, 2002.
Fabrini, Sergio. “Introduction” to Robert Dahl’s Liberty and Virtue. Berkeley, Institute of Government Studies Press, 2001.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge. Pantheon Books, 1980.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1951.
Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Gouldner, Alvin. The Coming Crisis of Western Society. New York: Basic Books, 1970, p. 29
Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan.
Kinsolver, Barbara. Small Wonder: Essays “The One-Eyed Monster, and Why I Don’t Let Him In. p. 135. Harper Collins, 2002.
Lasswell, Harold D. Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: McGraw Hill, 1938.
Locke, John. The Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Thomas I. Cook. New York: Hafner, 1947.
Lublin, Joann S. “CEO Pay Surges” in The Week Vol. 3. Issue 127. 10/17/03, p. 42.
Malinowski, Bronsilaw. The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology). International Thomson Publishing, 1988.
McConnell and Brue. Economics 15th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Miroff, Seidelman, and Swanstrom. The Democratic Debate: An Introduction to American Politics. 3rd edition. Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Parenti, Michael. Democracy for the Few. 7th Edition. Thomson Wadsworth, 2002, p. 32
“Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” Human Rights Watch. Vol. 2. May 2000.
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Putnam, Robert. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 6, No. 1. January 1995.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. On the Social Contract With Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy. Bedford/St. Martins, 1978.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. I. London: Cadell and W. Davies, 1805; John Stuart Mill. On Liberty. 1859, reprinted Viking Press, 1982.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol. I. London: Cadell and W. Davies, 1805.
Select Internet Sites
http://www.apsanet.org The American Political Science Association has links related to political science and civic education, plus scholarly essays in these fields.
http://www.psqonline.org The Political Science Quarterly is an academic journal of public and international affairs.
http://www.cato.org/ A prominent libertarian think tank examining issues from a Classical Liberal perspective.
http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/ The Locke Institute examines issues relating to Class Liberalism.
http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/ The Lockesmith Institute at Belmont University is a site for scholarship on the topic of Classical Liberalism.
http://www.bowlingalone.com/ The Bowling Alone website which examines issues of declining social capital and civil society.
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/diag/diag.html The Affluenza website examines issues relating to consumerism.
http://www.tompaine.com/ TomPaine.com is an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary.
http://www.publicwork.org/ The Center for Democracy and Citizenship examines issues relating to expanding democracy from an activist citizen perspective
http://www.sustainable.org/creating-community/civic-engagement/535-institute-for-the-study-of-civic-values-iscv- The Institute for the Study of Civic Values seeks to foster a renewed commitment to America's historic civic ideals.
http://www.epinet.org/ The Economic Policy Institute examines economic issues from the perspective of workers.
http://www.civicyouth.org/: The Center for Information and Research in Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University presents research on civic learning and civic participation among young people.
References
Beard, Charles Austin. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Free Press, 1986 (1913).
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Alfred A. Knopf Co., 2000.
Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. Bantam Classics, 1998 (first published 1776).
Madison, John. The Constitution of the United States. Bantam Classics, 1998 (first published 1787)
Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist, edited by J. R. Poole. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005. First Published 1787.
Miroff, Seidelman, and Swanstrom. The Democratic Debate: An Introduction to American Politics, 3rd edition. Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Paine, Thomas. Thomas Paine: Collected Writings, The Library of America, 1995.
Parenti, Michael. Democracy for the Few, 7th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2002.
Weber, Max. Politics as a Vocation. Fortress Press, 1919.
Wills, Garry. "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters.html The Constitution of the United States and related articles.
http://www.usconstitution.net/ A variety of information about the U.S. Constitution.
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_ccon.html Some Constitutional facts linked from the site above.
http://www.usconstitution.net/constconart.html Comparing the U.S. Constitution and the Articles of Confederation.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bdsds/bdsdhome.html Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.
http://www.answers.com/topic/beard-charles-austin Information on Charles Austin Beard, author of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution.
http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/usconst.html Texts, Commentaries, Historical Texts and Judicial Decisions.
http://ratify.constitutioncenter.org/constitution/ The Constitution along with some “fast facts.”
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/6-8/documents/constitution/background.html Ben’s guide to U.S. Government.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/fed.asp The Federalist Papers.
http://www.constitution.org/afp/afp.htm The Anti-Federalist Papers.
http://www.americanconstitutionsociety.org/ The American Constitution Society.
http://www.constitutionparty.com/ The goal of the Constitution Party is to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations.
http://www.aclu.org The American Civil Liberties Union.
References
Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History, Harvard University Press, 2002.
Cole, David and James X. Dempsey. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties In The Name of National Security. The New Press, 2006.
Eastland, Terry. Freedom of Expression in the Supreme Court. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
Feldman, Jay. Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America. Pantheon, 2011.
Garfield, David K. The Death Penalty: Capital Punishment in the USA. CreateSpace Publishing, 2015.
Greenwald, Glenn. With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. Metropolitan Books, 2011.
Greenwalt, Kent. Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech. Princeton University Press, 1995.
Halbrook, Stephen P. The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms. Foundation Press, 2008.
Hasson, Kevin Seamus. The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War over Religion in America. Encounter Books, 2005.
Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government, Prentice Hall, 1952. (first published 1689).
Loury, Glenn C. Race, Incarceration, and American Values. MIT Press, 2008.
Madison, John. The Constitution of the United States. Bantam Classics, 1998 (first published 1787).
Maslow, Abraham H. A Theory of Human Motivation. Martino Fine Books, 2013.
Shipler, David K. Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012.
Taibbi, Matt. The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Spiegel & Grau, 2014.
Walker, Samuel. In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.
http://www.aclu.org/. The American Civil Liberties Union works to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
http://www.nra.org/home.aspx. The NRA.
http://www.crf-usa.org/. The Constitutional Rights Foundation seeks to instill a deeper understanding of citizenship through the values expressed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/. The Death Penalty Information Center.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/index.aspx. Human Rights First examines civil liberties since September 11, 2001.
http://www.now.org/. The National Organization of Women represents the interests of women in the United States.
Collins, Gail. When Everything Changed. The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. Back Bay Books, 2010.
Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Crown, 1991.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. (1963) W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Gibson, Robert A. “The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States, 1980-1950.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 2004.
Hirsch, James C. Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA. Crowell. 1976.
Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality, 2nd ed., Harper & Row, 1970.
Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", 1963, Courtesy of The King Center, Atlanta, GA
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. (1859), Viking Press, 1982.
The Records of the Virginia Company of London, Vol. III, Pt. A, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), Facsimile edition (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1995).
Thoreau, Henry David. On Civil Disobedience. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1997 (originally published 1849).
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Man and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (originally published 1792).
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/classroom/MLKquiz.html A Seattle Times quiz on the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King.
http://www.aaregistry.com/ The African-American registry is an encyclopedia of African American History online.
http://www.aclu.org/ The American Civil Liberties Union works to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript This is the text of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ The Death Penalty Information Center.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html A civil rights timeline.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/moore/mooreIndex.shtml Photos of the civil rights struggle by photojournalist Charles Moore.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/civil_rights.html The Legal Information Institute’s overview of Civil Rights legislation.
http://www.naacp.org/ The NAACP works to promote racial equality and eliminate racial discrimination.
http://www.now.org/ The National Organization of Women represents the interests of women in the United States.
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/ The Center for American Women and Politics includes fact sheets on women in politics, analyses of how women candidates did in recent elections, and information about such topics as the impact of term limits on women officeholders. From Rutgers University.
http://www.aimovement.org/ The American Indian Movement.
http://www.maldef.org/ The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
http://www.thetaskforce.org/ The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
http://www.lambdalegal.org/ Lambda Legal – national civil rights legal organization for LGBT
Burns, James MacGregor. et. al., Government By the People, 18th ed., Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
Chubb, John E., “Federalism and the Bias for Centralization,” in John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, eds., New Directions in American Politics, Washington: Brookings Institution.
Correspondence with John Kincaid at meynerc@lafayette.edu
Derbyshire, Denis and Derbyshire, Ian, Political Systems of the World Oxford: Helicon, 1999.
Elazar, Daniel J., ed., Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements, 2nd ed., New York: Longman, 1994.
Greenhouse, Linda, “The High Court’s Target: Congress,” New York Times, Feb. 25, 2001.
Kettle, Daniel F., “Federalism, Anyone?” Governing Feb. 2004.
Kincaid, John, “The State of U.S. Federalism 200-2001: Continuity and Crisis,” Publius, Summer 2001.
Ross, Bernard H. and Levine, Myron A., Urban Politics: Power in Metropolitan America, 6th ed., Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock, 2001.
Zimmerman, Joseph F., Interstate Relations, Westpoint, CN: Praeger, 1996.
Morton Grodzins, Centralization and Decentralization in the American Federal System,” in Robert A. Goldwin, ed., A Nation of States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963).
See Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (New York: Doubleday, 2003).
Ted Halstead, “The Chieftains and the Church,” The Atlantic (Jan./Feb. 2004), p. 154.
Virginia Gray, et. al., Politics in the American States, 7th ed., (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Books, 1999), pp. 38-39.
William H. Riker, Federalism: Origins, Operation, and Significance (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), p. 155.
www.stateline.org: Once you are on the homepage, click “State News Roundup” and you will have access to major stories of the day in each state. You can look at issues, such as “Environment and Energy” by clicking on those in which you are interested. Under “States” you can get information about each state.
www.nga.org This is the website for the National Governors’ Association. Click on “Key State-Federal issues.”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/federalism/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy examines Federalism
http://www.closeup.org/ The Close Up Foundation is committed to making citizenship education accessible to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic standing, or grade point average.
www.governing.com This is the website for the monthly publication, Governing: The Magazine of States and Localities. You can check current news about states and cities under “Today’s News.” The full context of Governing is available, as well as statistical information from the magazine’s Source Book.
Section Two: Participation
Asher, Herbert. Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know. Eighth edition, 2010. CQ Press.
Barone, Michael, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, Washington: National Journal, 2002.
Brehm, John, The Phantom Respondents, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Davidson, Roger H. and Oleszek, Walter J., Congress and Its Members, 9th ed., Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004.
Erickson, Robert S. and Tedin, Kent L., American Public Opinion, 6th ed., New York: Longman, 2003.
Hess, Robert D. and Torney, Judith V., The Development of Political Attitudes in Children, Chicago: Aldine, 1967.
Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., The Political Character of Adolescence, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Kirkpatrick, David D., “College for the Home-Schooled Is Shaping Leaders for the Right,” New York Times, March 8, 2004.
Kristoff, Nicholas, “The God Gulf,” New York Times, January 7, 2004
Lipset, Seymour M., Political Man, New York: Doubleday, 1963.
Mueller, John, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, New York: Wiley, 1973.
All major polling organizations have websites. Here are a few sites:
www.ropercenter.uconn.edu This is the site for the Roper Poll, as well as for archival data from many polls, including the Gallup Poll.
www.pollingreport.com This is a service of The Polling Report, which reports on opinions about politics, the economy, and popular culture.
www.publicagenda.com This site has polling data, plus information about how to analyze poll results critically.
www.fivethirtyeight.com This site is the home of Nate Silver, the well regarded statistician who polls about politics.
References
Berry, Jeffrey M., The Interest Group Society (third edition), New York: Longman, 1997.
Birnbaum, Jeffrey H., The Lobbyists: How Influence Peddlers Work Their Way in Washington, New York: Random House, 1993.
Lowi, Theodore, The End of Liberalism (second edition), New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960.
Truman, David, The Governmental Process (second edition), New York: Knopf, 1971.
West, Darrell M. and Burdett A. Loomis, The Sound of Money: How Political Interests Get What They Want, New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
Selected Internet Sites
Note: Virtually every interest group active in the American political system has one or more website. The quickest way to learn of it is to type the group’s name as one word, followed by .org.
http://www.pirg.org/ This is the site of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) which has chapters on many college campuses across the nation.
www.alldc.org This is the web site of the American League of Lobbyists, a group seeking to improve the ethical conduct of lobbyists.
http://www.aarp.org This is the web site of the American Association of Retired Persons, a group many observers consider to be the most powerful interest group in the United States.
http://www.nam.org This is the web site of the National Association of Manufacturers.
http://www.uschamber.org This is the web site of the United States Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation’s most influential business lobbying groups.
http://www.naacp.org This is the web site of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s major civil rights activist group in the twentieth century.
http://www.now.org This is the web site of the National Organization for Women, the nation’s most influential interest group lobbying on winning equal rights for women.
http://www.ama-assn.org This is the web site of the American Medical Association.
http://www.aflcio.org This is the web site of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union.
http://www.fb.com This is the web site of the Farm Bureau, the nation’s most powerful agribusiness interest group.
http://commoncause.org This organization fights for honest and accountable government, by pushing for campaign finance reform.
http:/www.citizen.org This group is a consumer advocacy group which fights for fair government for all.
Bibby, John F. Politics, Parties, and Elections in America 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002.
Crotty, William J., and Jacobson, Gary C. American Parties in Decline. Boston: Little Brown, 1980.
Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, 1957.
Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (trans. Barbara and Robert North). New York: John Wiley, 1963.
Edwards, George, C. III, Wattenberg, Martin P. and Lineberry, Robert L. Government in America. New York: Longman, 2002.
Huntington, Samuel. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1980.
Key, V.O. Jr. Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups. New York: Crowell, 1964.
Ladd, Everett Carll Jr. and Hadley, Charles D. Transformation of the American Party System: Political Coalitions from the New Deal to the 1970’s 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1978.
Ranney, Austin. Curing the Mischiefs of Faction: Party Reform in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
Rosenstone, Steven J. et al. 2nd ed. Third Parties in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Sabato, Larry J. and Larson, Bruce. The Party's Just Begun: Shaping Political Parties for America's Future 2nd ed. New York, Pearson, 2001.
Schattschneider, E.E. Party Government. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942.
Sorauf, Frank. Party Politics in America 5th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.
Wattenberg, Martin P. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952-1994.
Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Wilson, James Q. American Government. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
www.electionstudies.org The ANES guide to public opinion and electoral behavior from the University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies.
www.rnc.org the official website of the Republican National Committee.
www.democrats.org the official website of the Democratic National Committee.
http://www.lp.org/ the official website of the Libertarian Party.
http://www.cpusa.org the official website of the Communist Party USA.
www.reformparty.org the official website of the Reform Party.
www.greenparty.org the official website of the Green Party.
www.people-press.org the official website for the Pew Research Center, which offers survey data on the American electorate, recent elections and many other political issues.
http://socialistparty-usa.net The official website of the Socialist Party USA.
Abrahamson, Paul R., Aldrich, John H. and Rohde, David W. Change and Continuity in the 2000 and 2002 Elections. Washington, D.C: CQ Press, 2003.
Alexander, Herbert E. Financing Politics: Money, Elections and Political Reform 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1992.
Campbell, Angus et al. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley, 1960.
Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, 1957.
Edwards, George, C. III, Wattenberg, Martin P. and Lineberry, Robert L. Government in America. New York: Longman, 2002.
Fiorina, Morris. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1981.
Flanigan, William H. and Zingale, Nancy. Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 10th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002
Jillson, Cal. American Government. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002.
Key, V.O. Jr. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting 1936-1960. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1966.
Key, V. O. Jr. “A Theory of Critical Elections,” Journal of Politics 17 (February 1955): 11.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F. The People’s Choice 3rd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Sidlow, Edward and Henschen, Beth. America at Odds. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004.
Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman and Petrocik John R. The Changing American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Verba, Sidney and Nie, Norman. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Rosenstone, Stephen J. Who Votes. New Haven, Connecticut:YaleUniversityPress,1980.
www.electionstudies.org: The ANES guide to public opinion and electoral behavior at the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies.
http://www.fec.gov The official Website of the Federal Election Commission. It contains all the finance records for federal candidates and provides information current campaign finance laws.
http://www.vote-smart.org This Website provides information on campaign finances as well as voting records for federal candidates.
http://www.opensecrets.org This website presents in an easy to understand format a huge amount of data on money raised and spent all elections with an eye toward transparency.
http://www.electionstudies.org This is the official Website of the National Election Studies group. It provides a plethora of information on voting, public opinion and political participation.
http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx The official Website of the Gallup organization. It provides new and historical polls on all aspects of American life.
http://www.idea.int/about The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) provides information on elections, voting behavior and turnout throughout the democratic world.
http://www.census.gov/ The Census Bureau provides information on voter turnout and registration procedures.
http://www.pollingreport.com This Website provides the most comprehensive and update polling information on national and state level races throughout the United States.
http://www.igc.apc.org/cvd/ this is the official Website for the Center for Voting and Democracy. It has information on international electoral laws and voting systems.
http://www.campaignsandelections.com/ An online version of the Campaigns and Elections magazine focused on all things political, this site also features a large directory of political blogs.
Section Three: Institutions
Auletta, Ken, “Fortress Bush,” New Yorker, January 19, 2004.
Balkin, J.M., “How Mass Media Stimulate Political Transparency,” 1998.
Boorstein, Daniel, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, New York: Atheneum, 1977.
Davidson, Roger H. and Oleszek, Walter J., Congress and Its Members, 9th ed., Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004.
DeClerico, Robert E., The American Presidency, 5th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
Erickson, Robert S. and Tedin, Kent, American Public Opinion, 6th ed., New York: Longman, 2003.
Friedman, Thomas, “Al Queda a Product of Globalization,” New York Times, March 17, 2004.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Graber, Doris A., Mass Media and American Politics, 6th ed., Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002.
Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Pantheon, 2002.
Kolbert, Elizabeth, “Stooping to Conquer: Why Candidates Need to Make Fun of Themselves,” New Yorker, April 19 & 26.
Lawrence, Regina G., “Defining Events: Problem Definition in the Media Arena” in Roderick P. Hart and Bartholomew H. Sparrow, eds., Politics, Discourse, and American Society, Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Livington, Steven and Bennett, W. Lance, “Gatekeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News?” Political Communication, October-December 2003.
Menard, Louis, “Masters of the Matrix,” New Yorker, January 5, 2004.
O’Brien, David M., Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics, 6th ed., New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality: The Politics of the News Media, Cengage Learning, 1992.
Patterson, Thomas E., Out of Order, New York: Knopf, 1993.
Ruthenberg, Jim, “In Politics, the Web Is a Parallel World With Its Own Rules,” New York Times, February 22, 2004.
Sabato, Larry, Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics, New York: Macmillan, 1991.
Sella, Marshall, “The Stiff Guy vs. the Dumb Guy,” New York Times Magazine, September 24, 2000.
Starr, Paul, The Creation of the Media: The Political Origins of Mass Communications, New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Steinberg, Jacque, “Study Finds a Waning Appetite for News,” New York Times March 15, 2004.
Swope, Christopher, “E-Gov’s New Gear,” Governing, March 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com The New York Times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com The Washington Post.
http://www.latimes.com The Los Angeles Times.
http://www.npr.org National Public Radio
http://www.huffingtonpost.com The Huffington Post
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/ CNN Inside Politics has current news about political issues and topics.
http://www.people-press.org The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press does top-quality surveys of the media on a regular basis.
http://fair.org FAIR is the site for the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which monitors mainstream news programs.
Baker, Ross K., House and Senate (third edition), New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Davidson Roger H. and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress and Its Members (ninth edition), Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004.
Dodd, Lawrence C. and Bruce I. Oppenheimer, Congress Reconsidered (seventh edition), Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001.
Fenno, Richard F., Home Style: House Members in Their Districts, Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
Fiorina, Morris P., Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment (second edition), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
Kingdon, John W., Congressmen’s Voting Decisions, (third edition), Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992.
Mann, Thomas E. and Norman J. Ornstein., The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back On Track, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006
Mayhew, David R., Congress: The Electoral Connection, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1974.
Sinclair, Barbara, Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U. S. Congress, (second edition), Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006.
http://thomas.loc.gov The Library of Congress website which is named after Thomas Jefferson.
http://www.house.gov/ The official web page of the U. S. House of Representatives.
http://www.senate.gov/ The official web page of the U. S. Senate.
http://www.c-span.org The official web page of the cable channel monitoring congressional activities.
http://www.hillnews.com The free web site of the Hill News, a newspaper covering daily congressional activities.
References
Edwards, George C., At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
Edwards, George C., On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
Ellis, Richard and Aaron Wildsvsky, Dilemmas of Presidential Leadership: From Washington through Lincoln, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989.
Janis, Irving L., Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (second edition), Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
Jones, Charles, The Presidency In a Separated System, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994.
Lowi, Theodore J., The Personal President, Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan, New York: The Free Press, 1990.
Rose, Richard. The Postmodern President (second edition) Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1991.
Skowronek, Stephen, The Politics Presidents Make, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Select Internet Sites
http://www.whitehouse.gov The home page of the White House features information on the current president and vice president and often focuses on an event or issue of importance to the president.
http://nationalparalegal.edu/conLawCrimProc_Public/Federalism/PresidentialPowers.asp This site provides a very comprehensive overview of the powers of the President.
http://www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS This site features profiles of presidents, cabinet officers, and important events during each administration. “POTUS” is the long-standing abbreviation for The President of the United States used by White House and Secret Service staff as shorthand for the President.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html This site lists the cabinet secretaries and provides links to each cabinet-level department.
References
Derthick, Martha and Paul J. Quirk, The Politics of Deregulation, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution:, 1985.
Goodsell, Charles T., The Case For Bureaucracy (third edition), Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993.
Kerwin, Cornelius M., Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1994.
Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation (third edition), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984.
Rourke, Francis E., Bureaucratic Power in National Policymaking (fourth edition), Boston: Little, Brown, 1986.
http://www.whitehouse.gov The home page of the White House features information on the current president and vice president and often focuses on an event or issue of importance to the president.
http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/ This site features profiles of presidents, cabinet officers, and important events during each administration. “POTUS” is the long-standing abbreviation for The President of the United States used by White House and Secret Service staff as shorthand for the President.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html This site lists the cabinet secretaries and provides links to each cabinet-level department.
Bork, Robert H. The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law. New York: Free Press, 1990
Buglioso, Vincent. The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President. New York: Nation Press, 2001.
Holbrook-DeFeo, Gary. "The Election of 1800: Alexander Hamilton and the Death of the Federalist Party." New England Journal of History 49. (Winter 1993): 26-40. EJ 467 858.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Rehnquist, William H. The Supreme Court: A new edition of the Chief Justice’s Classic History. New York: Knopf, 2001.
Scalia, Antonin. A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjhome.html The Thomas Jefferson papers at the Library of Congress.
http://www.fed-soc.org/ The Federalist Society offers a conservative perspective on Supreme Court cases and other legal issues.
http://www.fjc.gov/ The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research center for the federal courts.
http://www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/ The University of Pittsburgh School of Law maintains a web site with a lot of information on the Supreme Court and Constitutional law.
http://www.law.com/index.shtml This site is designed to serve legal professionals but contains a lot of interesting information.
http://www.rominger.com/supreme.htm Rominger Legal provides links to various levels of the federal and state court systems.
http://www.uscourts.gov/ The web site of the Federal Court System.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ The White House web site which has links to all previous presidents including Adams and Jefferson.
Section Four: Issues in U.S. Government and Politics
Bardes, Barbara, Shelley, Mack C. and Schmidt, Steffan W. American Government and Politics Today Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004.
Carr, E.H. The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939 – An Introduction to the Study of International Relations. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2001.
Kegley, Charles W. and Kegley, Charles W. Jr. The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Kennan George F. American Diplomacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Addison Wesley, 2000.
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. Touchstone, 1995.
Morgenthau, Hans J. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Mr. X. “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs”, July 1947, pp. 566-82.
Sidlow, Edward and Henschen, Beth. America at Odds. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004.
Stadelmann, Marcus A. U.S. Presidents for Dummies: New York: Wiley Publishing Inc., 2002.
Stoessinger, John G. Why Nations go to War 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2000.
Stoessinger, John G. The Might of Nations 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Language, 1992.
Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979.
Waltz, Kenneth N. Man, the State, and War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Williams, Ric, “The Lilliputians Discover Gulliver: American Foreign Policy in the Pos-Cold War Era”, paper presented at the Spring 2004 National Social Science Association Conference.
Wittkopf, Eugene R. American Foreign Policy 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2002.
http://www.state.gov This is the officially Website for the State Department. Not only does it provide a slew of historical and current information about State Department activities and American foreign policy, but the site also provides information on employment within the State Department.
http://www.defenselink.mil/ The official Website of the Department of Defense. It provides information on military issues and issues of national security, such as the ongoing war on terrorism.
http://www.fpa.org The Foreign Policy Association has news and resources on issues related to foreign policy.
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html This Website will take you to the CIA World Factbook, one of the most comprehensive collections of political, economic, and social data on every country in the world. Updated frequently, the World Factbook is one of the best resources to use on the Internet.
http://www.nato.int/: This is the Official Website of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO is the most successful of the all the international alliances the United States established and is continuing to expand, by admitting Eastern European countries today.
http://www.cfr.org: This is the official Website of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council is the most respected and most influential private American organization in the foreign policy area. The Website provides the student with much information on almost every major foreign policy issue of the day.
http://www.un.org/: This is the official Website of the United Nations. The Website provides information on the structure of the United Nations, its functions and day-to-day operations. In addition major issues of the day in front of the Security Council and the General Assembly are being discussed.
http://www.worldbank.org: This is the official Website of the World Bank. It contains a plethora of information on the economic development of countries around the globe.
http://www.cdi.org: This is the website of the Center for Defense Information, a non-partisan think tank analyzing issues such as the arms race, nuclear proliferation and the arms trade.
http://www.heritage.org/research/tradeandforeignaid/: This is the official Website of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative private think tank. The Foundation discusses many issues ranging from foreign aid to the U.S. voting record in the United Nations.
15. Economic and Social Policy
Donald. L. Barlett and James B. Steele, America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (New York: Touchstone, 1993).
Branigin, William. “U.S. Consumer Debt Grows at Alarming Rate” Washington Post, Monday, January 12, 2004.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Two Decades of Extraordinary Gains for
Affluent Americans Yield Widest Income Gaps since 1929”. Tuesday, September 23, 2003.
Danziger, James M. Understanding the Political World, 6th ed. Longman, 2002.
Derber, Charles. Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over our Lives and What We Can Do About It. St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed.
Friedman, Milton. Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960. Princeton University Press, 1971.
Heilbroner, Robert. "The Triumph of Capitalism," The New Yorker, January 23, 1989.
Huntington, Samuel. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late 20th Century. University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. (1936) Prometheus Books, 1997.
Krugman, Paul. The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2003.
Manning, Robert D. Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit. Basic Books, 2001.
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Schor, Juliet B. "Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Basic Books, 1993.
Shipler, David. The Working Poor: Invisible in America'. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
U.S. Census Bureau. “Poverty, Income See Slight Changes; Child Poverty Rate
Unchanged, Census Bureau Reports”. Friday, September 26, 2003.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ This is the U.S. national debt clock which continually updates the current level of U.S. debt and provides other information and news about the debt.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov Senator Sanders has numerous articles on his website about income inequality and the current state of the US.
http://www.cato.org/index.html The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank advocating “individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.”
http://www.cbpp.org/ The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a non-profit policy organization that examines the impact of fiscal and public policy on poor and moderate income groups.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html G. William Domhoff, Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz writes this comprehensive site devoted to understanding wealth and inequality in the US.
http://www.commoncause.org/ Common Cause is a watchdog group that pledges to “hold power accountable.”
http://www.policyideas.org/ The Century Foundation provides alternative ways of looking at social policy issues.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/govt.htm This contains information on the national debt and its history.
http://www.taxpayer.net/ Taxpayers for Common Sense is a non-partisan budget watchdog group.
http://www.urban.org The Urban Institute provides online research reports on the immigrant experience, reentry of prisoners into society, housing discrimination, health care for children, and more.
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