State and Local Politics: Institutions and Reform

In this Fourth Edition of STATE AND LOCAL POLITICS: INSTITUTIONS AND REFORM, Donovan, Smith, Mooney, and new co-author Tracy Osborn go beyond the purely descriptive treatment usually found in state and local texts. Offering an engaging comparative approach, the Fourth Edition shows you how politics and government differ between states and communities, and points out the causes and effects of those variations. The text also focuses on what social scientists know about the effects of rules and institutions on politics and policy. This comparative, institutional framework enables you to think more analytically about the impact of institutions on policy outcomes, asks you to evaluate the effectiveness of one institutional approach over another, and encourages you to consider more sophisticated solutions. Written by four young, high-profile specialists who have contributed significantly to the field in the last decade, STATE AND LOCAL POLITICS: INSTITUTIONS AND REFORM incorporates the most recent scholarship available into the course, giving you access to perspectives that no other textbook on the market currently provides.

Todd Donovan (Ph.D., University of California, Riverside) is a professor of Political Science at Western Washington University. He teaches state and local politics; American politics, parties, campaigns, and elections; comparative electoral systems; and introductory research methods and statistics. His research interests include direct democracy, election systems and representation, political behavior, subnational politics, and the political economy of local development. He has been published extensively in academic journals; written a number of books on direct democracy, elections, institutions, and reform; and has received numerous grants and awards for his work. He is coauthor (with Ken Hoover) of THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC THINKING, also published by Cengage Learning.

Daniel A. Smith (PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison) is a professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and the former director of UF's Political Campaigning Program. In addition to teaching state and local politics, he offers courses on political parties and interest groups, direct democracy, and the politics of reform. He has published widely on voting rights and election law, campaign finance, direct democracy, political parties, and interests groups. He serves on the board of directors of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Foundation (BISCF), headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is the author of several books and over 50 articles and book chapters on American politics.

Tracy Osborn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on women and politics in U.S. state legislatures, Congress, and political behavior. Her recent book, How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender, and Representation in the State Legislatures (Oxford University Press, 2012) examines how Democratic and Republican women represent women's issues under different legislative conditions. She has also published articles in Political Research Quarterly, American Politics Research, Politics & Gender, and other journals. She was named a Dean's Scholar by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa in 2012.

Christopher Z. Mooney (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison) is the Honorable W. Russell Arrington Professor of State Politics at the University of Illinois, Springfield. From 1999 to 2007, he served as the founding editor of STATE POLITICS AND POLICY QUARTERLY, the official journal of the State Politics and Policy section of the American Political Science Association. Mooney has authored dozens of books and articles related to legislative politics, morality politics, and policy diffusion. In addition, he often serves as a media commentator on state politics topics, including serving as a regular panelist on State Week in Review, a National Public Radio program broadcast statewide in Illinois. In 2010, in recognition of his scholarship and founding of SPPQ, the APSA endowed the annual Christopher Z. Mooney Award for the best PhD dissertation in the field of state politics.