Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.

American Federalism in Practice is an original and important contribution to our understanding of contemporary health policy. It also illustrates how contentious public policy is debated, formulated, and implemented in today’s overheated political environment. Health care reform is perhaps the most divisive public policy issue facing the United States today. Michael Doonan provides a unique perspective on health policy in explaining how intergovernmental relations shape public policy. He tracks federal-state relations through the creation, formulation, and implementation of three of the most important health policy initiatives since the Great Society: the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), both passed by the U.S. Congress, and the Massachusetts health care reform program as it was developed and implemented under federal government waiver authority. He applies lessons learned from these cases to implementation of the Affordable Care Act. “Health policymaking is entangled in a complex web of shared, overlapping, and/or competing power relationships among different levels of government,” the author notes. Understanding federal-state interactions, the ways in which they vary, and the reasons for such variation is essential to grasping the ultimate impact of federalism on programs and policy. Doonan reveals how federalism can shift as the sausage of public policy is made while providing a new framework for comprehending one of the most polarizing debates of our time.

This book takes an interdisciplinary look at how the institutions of intergovernmental fiscal relations are shaped, drawing on work by both academics and practitioners in the field.

"As James Madison led America's effort to write its Constitution, he made two great inventions-the separation of powers and federalism. The first is more famous, but the second was most essential because, without federalism, there could have been no United States of America. Federalism has always been about setting the balance of power between the federal government and the states-and that's revolved around deciding just how much inequality the country was prepared to accept in exchange for making piece among often-warring states. Through the course of its history, the country has moved through a series of phases, some of which put more power into the hands of the federal government, and some rested more power in the states. Sometimes this rebalancing led to armed conflict. The Civil War, of course, almost split the nation permanently apart. And sometimes it led to political battles. By the end of the 1960s, however, the country seemed to have settled into a quiet agreement that inequality was a prime national concern, that the federal government had the responsibility for addressing it through its own policies, and that the states would serve as administrative agents of that policy. But as that agreement seemed set, federalism drifted from national debate, just as the states began using their administrative role to push in very different directions. The result has been a rising tide of inequality, with the great invention that helped create the nation increasingly driving it apart"--

A Brookings Institution Press and the National Academy of Public Administration publication America's complex system of multi-layered government faces new challenges as a result of rapidly changing economic, technological, and demographic trends. An aging population, economic globalization, and homeland security concerns are among the powerful factors testing the system's capacity and flexibility. Major policy challenges and responses are now overwhelmingly intergovernmental in nature, and as a result, the fortunes of all levels of government are more intertwined and interdependent than ever before. This volume, cosponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), defines an agenda for improving the performance of America's intergovernmental system. The early chapters present the current state of practice in intergovernmental relations, including discussion of trends toward centralization, devolution, and other power-sharing arrangements. The fiscal underpinnings of the system are analyzed, along with the long-term implications of current trends in financing at all levels. The authors identify the principal tools used to define intergovernmental management–grants, mandates, preemptions—in discussing emerging models and best practices in the design and management of those tools. In tergovernmental Management for the 21st Century applies these crosscutting themes to critical policy areas where intergovernmental management and cooperation are essential, such as homeland security, education, welfare, health care, and the environment. It concludes with an authoritative assessment of the system's capacity to govern, oversee, and improve. Contributors include Jocelyn Johnston (American University), Shelley Metzenbaum (University of Maryland), Richard Nathan (SUNY at Albany), Barry Rabe (University of Michigan), Beryl Radin (American University), Alice Rivlin (Brookings Institution), Ray Sheppach (National Governors Association), Frank Shafroth (George Mason University), Troy Smith (BYU–Hawaii), Carl Stenberg (University of Nor