American Government: A Brief Introduction

Think critically about American government

American Government: A Brief Introduction teaches students how to interpret and question data in charts, graphs, and polls that they encounter daily in social media. Drawing on her expertise as both a teacher and researcher, new co-author Hahrie Han helps students develop essential quantitative literacy as they learn how American government works. A reconceptualized introductory chapter establishes a foundation for interpreting empirical evidence, and a unique framework built around the themes of governance and representation, helps students understand how the concepts and processes of American government function in their daily lives. Together with a robust media program that offers opportunities to remediate and apply these skills, American Government: A Brief Introduction builds the knowledge and confidence that enables students to think for themselves―whether in the voting booth, community participation, or interpreting in the news.

Theodore J. Lowi was John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University. He was elected president of the American Political Science Association in 1990 and was cited as the political scientist who made the most significant contribution to the field during the decade of the 1970s. Among his numerous books are The End of Liberalism and The Pursuit of Justice, on which he collaborated with Robert F. Kennedy.

Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science, Director of the Washington Center for the Study of American Government, and Chair of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author or coauthor of 20 books including Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced, Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public, Politics by Other Means, The Consequences of Consent, and The Captive Public. Before joining the Hopkins faculty in 1992, Ginsberg was Professor of Government at Cornell University. His most recent book is The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. Ginsberg’s published research focuses on political development, presidential politics, participation, and money in politics.

Kenneth A. Shepsle is the George D. Markham Professor of Government and founding member of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle: Democratic Committee Assignments in the Modern House, Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition, Making and Breaking Governments, and Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1990, and he is the recipient of fellowships by the Hoover Institution, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Shepsle’s research focuses on formal political theory, congressional politics, public policy, and political economy.

Stephen Ansolabehere is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is the coauthor of The Media Game and Going Negative: How Political Advertising Alienates and Polarizes the American Electorate, which was awarded the Goldsmith Book Prize. His articles have appeared in The American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Public Opinion Quarterly. He has been awarded fellowships by the Carnegie Corporation Fellowship and the Hoover Institution. He served as a co-director of the CalTech/MIT Voting Project, established in the wake of the 2000 presidential election to evaluate the current state of the reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems and propose uniform guidelines and requirements for reliable voting and performance. Ansolabehere’s research focuses on public opinion, elections, mass media, and representation.

Hahrie Han is the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, and Faculty Director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in the study of organizing, movements, civic engagement, and democracy. Her newest book was published by the University of Chicago Press in July 2021, entitled Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in 21st Century America. She has previously published three books: How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century ; Groundbreakers: How Obama's 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America ; and Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Her award-winning work has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and numerous other outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a fifth book, to be published with Knopf (an imprint of Penguin Random House), about faith and race in America, with a particular focus on evangelical megachurches