The Logic of American Politics

Why does the American political system work the way it does?

After observing the strains of intense partisanship and divided government, many Americans are wondering what logic, if any, can be found in politics. With both sides of the political spectrum being so different from one another and the scales often tipping in the favor of the opposing party by a fraction of a percentage point, how can anyone work the system to their advantage?

With fresh analysis of the 2022 midterm election results, the Eleventh Edition of bestselling textbook The Logic of American Politics provides students with the tools they need to make sense of our government today. Weaving together historical context, contemporary politics, and a "toolkit" of institutional design concepts, the authors build an understanding of political institutions and practices as imperfect solutions to collective action problems.

“"The Logic of American Politicsprovides an edifying combination of social science concepts, political history, and clear connections to current events. It helps students understand everything from the countrys founding to todays headlines."”

"The Logic of American Politics is a consistently valuable resource for any educator hoping to explain the seemingly illogical elements of American Politics. The format of the textbook spans all major substantive areas of American Politics, including foundational elements, institutions, public opinion, and policy-making, while incorporating current political issues and examples throughout the text. The "Politics to Policy" feature is particularly helpful to understand the political rationale behind significant policies, and tangibly link theory to outcomes."--Shannon McQueen
"The Logic of American Politics is comprehensive, captivating, and clear. It is the perfect book to help students learn about collective action and its role in shaping American government throughout the country's history. It provides students with a common language and a set of tools for analyzing what is happening in the United States today. I especially appreciate how the book uses pictures, graphics, and tables to break down complex concepts, making the material more engaging and easier to understand. I strongly recommend this book!"--Christopher Ojeda
"The Logic of American Politics is one of the most accessible introductory texts in the field. Employing "collective action" as its unifying theme, it makes it easy for students to identify how topics as disparate as Congress, the Presidency, the Civil Rights Movement, voting, and public opinion are connected to one another."--Johannes A.A.M. van Gorp

"The Logic of American Politics is a terrifically rich summation of our knowledge in this particular area; more importantly, it is a masterfully articulated blueprint for how to think about politics in general. In my opinion, there is not a more potent exposition of the current theories and empirical evidence in political science. For that reason, I not only assign this book to undergraduate students, but also in many of my PhD courses to give young scholars a foundation for doing original research in the field."

--Nate Monroe
"Logic engages students on multiple levels to provide an unrivaled textbook on American politics. Its narrative history teaches students the context and background necessary to appreciate the development and design of the constitutional system. Its analytic approach gives students social scientific tools to conceptualize the interactions of American political institutions, politicians, and citizens. And its timely updates to the text, case histories, and sidebars allow students to easily connect the timeless elements of the text to contemporary political controversies. This is an exceptional combination for any student of American politics. I always select this book when teaching my courses."--Seth Hill
"Logic is an essential resource for teaching about US politics today, which often appears to have no logic to it."--Jennifer Nicoll Victor
"The Logic of American Politics is that rare introductory textbook that does not condescend to its readers. Rigorous and serious without being intimidating, the book provides students with both a solid empirical foundation for understanding the nuts and bolts of American government and politics as well as a supremely useful theoretical toolkit of core collective action concepts. Those concepts recur across the subject matter covered in the book and deepen students′ understanding of the challenges - as well as the distinctive characteristics - of democratic self-government in America."--Sam Rosenfeld
"The Logic of American Politics offers the best theoretically driven understanding of American politics for undergraduates; I've used it for nearly twenty years at a variety of institutions. It goes far beyond simple civics to teach students how to think like a political scientist. It explains historical and contemporary political patterns through concepts like collective action, delegation, and agenda control while remaining accessible for even first-year college students." --Jessica Trounstine
"Any political system can be evaluated in terms of its durability, whether it resolves collective action problems, solves the tragedy of the commons, protects individual freedom and ensures equity. The wonderful thing about The Logic of American Politics is that it helps students both understand this and then evaluate the American political system on these terms. It is a great textbook for those who want to think critically about politics in the United States."--Forrest Maltzman
"I dislike most textbooks. They usually privilege factual knowledge over giving students the building blocks they need to evaluate inferences from evidence, which is what students need in upper division courses. When I teach American Government, I use The Logic of American Politics because it teaches students the logic collective action, which is not easy to understand. Even for instructors who are skeptical about the assumption of rationality, this is a great text because it gives the students what they need to be able to think for themselves about what rationality implies for human behavior and institutional governance - and what it does not."--Vanessa Baird
"I have been a fan of The Logic of American Politics for many years. It has managed to nimbly stay on top of the everchanging world of American politics. The textbook seamlessly mixes in fundamental truths of the discipline with contemporary references to recent changes. Lively prose is combined with innovative and cleverly presented data analysis to produce a work that challenges my students but does not go over their heads. It reinforces the connections I try to make between my students' everyday lives and the political world around them. This is simply an outstanding text for those teaching an introductory class in American government."--Marty Cohen
"I have been using The Logic of American Politics for more than twenty years, and I cannot imagine using another text to teach my introductory class. By coming at the study of American government and politics through the lens of collective action, Kernell, Jacobson, Kousser, Vavreck, and Johnson provide students with a cognitive framework for thinking about deliberation, compromise, and consensus--all things that are essential to a healthy democracy but have recently been in short supply. The text's emphasis on institutionalism likewise helps students to understand why even when a consensus emerges, political preferences might not be sufficient to result in political action. My students come away from their reading armed with the information and critical analysis they need to be able to make informed judgments about their government and their own roles in it as citizens." --Lauren C. Bell
"I've been using The Logic of American Politics for more than a decade because it checks all the boxes for a textbook: comprehensive coverage of the major parts of American government; a theme that helps students see connections among various aspects of politics; and timely updates that keep the content fresh. This is the best book on the market."--Danny Hayes

Samuel Kernell is distinguished emeritus professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, where he has taught since 1977. Kernell's research interests focus on the presidency, political communication, and American political history. His books include Veto Rhetoric: A Leadership Strategy for Divided Government; Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 4th edition; Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, 2nd edition (with Gary C. Jacobson); and Party Ballots, Reform, and the Transformation of America's Electoral System (with Erik J. Engstrom). He has also edited Parallel Politics: Economic Policymaking in Japan and the United States; The Politics of Divided Government (with Gary W. Cox); and James Madison: The Theory and Practice of Republican Government. He is presently writing an intellectual biography of James H. Rowe.

Gary C. Jacobson is distinguished emeritus professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, where he taught from 1979 to 2016. He previously taught at Trinity College; the University of California, Riverside; Yale University; and Stanford University. Jacobson specializes in the study of U.S. elections, parties, interest groups, public opinion, and Congress. He is the author of Money in Congressional Elections; The Politics of Congressional Elections, 10th edition; The Electoral Origins of Divided Government; A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People, 2nd edition; and Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind; he is the coauthor of Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, 2nd edition. Jacobson is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Thad Kousser is professor of political science and co-director of the Yankelovich Center at the University of California, San Diego. He has served as a legislative aide in the California, New Mexico, and U.S. Senates. He is the author of Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism, coauthor of The Power of American Governors and The Logic of American Politics, and coeditor of The New Political Geography of California and recent editions of Politics in the American States. Kousser has been awarded the UCSD Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, has served as coeditor of the journals State Politics and Policy Quarterly and Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Lynn Vavreck is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a contributor to the New York Times. She is the author of The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy, and the award-winning books, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America and The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Campaign. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Andrew F. Carnegie Fellowship, and she has served on the advisory boards of both the British and American National Election Studies. At UCLA she teaches courses on campaigns, elections, and public opinion.

Timothy R. Johnson is Horace T. Morse Alumni Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Minnesota, former co-editor of the Law and Society Review, and former chair (2016-2017) of the Law and Court's Section of the American Political Science Association. He is the co-author of Oral Arguments and Coalition Formation on the U.S. Supreme Court, co-editor of A Good Quarrel: America's Top Legal Reporters Share Stories from Inside the Supreme Court, author of Oral Arguments and Decision Making on the U.S. Supreme Court, and co-author of Religious Institutions and Minor Parties in the United States. The National Science Foundation has supported five of his research projects. Beyond research, he teaches courses on constitutional law, civil liberties, judicial process, and American politics. He has won college-level and university-wide teaching awards and, in 2018, was named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Robert F. Cherry Award for Great Teaching and won the American Political Science Association's Distinguished Teaching Award.

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