We the People: An Introduction to American Politics

Government matters. And you can make a difference

We the People is the number one book for American government because of its unparalleled ability to help students understand American government―how it applies to them, and how they can participate. In her first edition as coauthor, Andrea Campbell used stories of real people to show students how government and politics can affect their lives and how individual participation matters. Now Campbell takes her emphasis on the citizen’s role one step further with new How To guides that present concrete steps to effective political participation. With InQuizitive, a powerful, adaptive learning tool, as well as critical thinking exercises and NEW Weekly News Quizzes, We the People offers a wide array of resources to help students learn the concepts of American government and apply them to their own lives.

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.

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.

Margaret Weir is Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written widely on social policy in Europe and the United States. She is the author of Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States and coauthor (with Ira Katznelson) of Schooling for All: Class, Race, and the Decline of the Democratic Ideal. Weir has also edited (with Ann Shola Orloff and Theda Skocpol) The Politics of Social Policy in the United States.

Caroline J. Tolbert is Distinguished University Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa, where she regularly teaches American government and social media and politics. She was named a 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for her research on voting and elections. She is coauthor of Accessible Elections: How the States Can Help Americans Vote and Choosing the Future: Technology and Opportunity in Communities, both with Oxford University Press. Accessible Elections examines absentee/mail voting, early voting, and same-day registration. She is coauthor of three other books on technology and politics: Digital Cities, Digital Citizenship, and Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide. Digital Citizenship was ranked one of 20 best-selling titles in the social sciences by the American Library Association. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and other nonprofit and technology partners. She has served on the Council for the American Political Science Association. Her work is driven by an interest in strengthening American democracy and inclusive participation in politics, the economy, and society.

Andrea Louise Campbell is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Campbell's interests include American politics, political behavior, public opinion, and political inequality, particularly their intersection with social welfare policy, health policy, and tax policy. She is the author of Trapped in America's Safety Net: One Family's Struggle (2014), How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Citizen Activism and the American Welfare State (2003) and, with Kimberly J. Morgan, The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Provision (2011). Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Political Behavior, Comparative Political Studies, Politics & Society, Studies in American Political Development, and Health Affairs, among others. She holds an A.B. degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Social Insurance and served on the National Academy of Sciences Commission on the Fiscal Future of the United States.