Power & Choice: An Introduction to Political Science

This program provides a general, comparative introduction to the major concepts and themes of political science. The title of the book, Power & Choice, indicates a subsidiary theme that recurs at intervals. We may view politics as (1) the use of power or (2) the production of a public choice. Often one or the other is heavily emphasized in approaching the subject. Marxism emphasizes politics as the use of power, while pluralism and much formal modeling work emphasize the emergence of public choices.

W. Phillips Shively is Morse-Alumni Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, where he moved in 1971 after teaching at the University of Oregon and Yale University. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo in Norway. His research, which has appeared in numerous articles, deals with the comparative study of elections, and he has written The Craft of Political Research, an introduction to research techniques. He has also had practical political experience as a lobbyist in Minnesota. His true love is bird-watching.