American Government 3e

Citation

Krutz, G., & Waskiewicz, S. (2021). American Government (3rd ed.). OpenStax. Free official edition: https://openstax.org/details/books/american-government-3e

Chapter Summary

Chapter 1: American Government and Civic Engagement

The opening chapter explains what government does (providing stability and services, managing common goods, giving citizens a way to make their views known) and why the United States is a representative democracy rather than an oligarchy. It sets elite theory against pluralism and argues that policy usually emerges from tradeoffs between competing groups. The final section surveys forms of civic and political engagement and who tends to participate.

Chapter 2: The Constitution and Its Origins

This chapter traces the path from colonial grievances and natural-rights thinking to independence, the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and the compromises of the 1787 Convention (bicameralism, separation of powers, checks and balances, the handling of slavery). It follows the ratification debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists and ends with the amendment process and constitutional change.

Chapter 3: American Federalism

Federalism is defined against unitary and confederal systems, and the chapter sets out how the Constitution divides powers and how each level of government raises revenue. It traces dual, cooperative and new federalism, explains grants-in-aid and mandates as tools of intergovernmental relations, discusses competitive federalism, including contested issues such as same-sex marriage and interest groups' "venue shopping" between levels of government, and weighs the system's advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter 4: Civil Liberties

Opening with protests and pandemic restrictions, the chapter explains how the Bill of Rights came to apply to the states through selective incorporation. It then works through the First to Fourth Amendments (religion, expression, assembly, arms, quartering, searches and seizures), the rights of suspects and defendants in the Fifth to Eighth Amendments, and the court-defined right to privacy.

Chapter 5: Civil Rights

The chapter frames civil rights through the equal protection clause and the different levels of judicial scrutiny. Separate sections trace the African American struggle from Reconstruction and Jim Crow to the civil rights movement, the women's movement from the 1840s to the Nineteenth Amendment and beyond, the rights of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, and equal protection claims by Latino and Asian Americans, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities.

Chapter 6: The Politics of Public Opinion

Starting from polling misses in 2012 and 2016, the chapter explains how political socialisation and ideology form opinion, how scientific polls use representative samples and margins of error (and what can still go wrong), what Americans think about policy and institutions, and how opinion affects elections and government.

Chapter 7: Voting and Elections

Framed by Pete Buttigieg's 2020 campaign, the chapter covers registration rules and laws (the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act), ways of measuring turnout and who votes, primaries, caucuses and the Electoral College, campaign finance after Citizens United, campaign strategy, and direct democracy through initiatives, referendums and recalls.

Chapter 8: The Media

This chapter defines the media and its roles (entertainment, watchdog, agenda-setting), traces the evolution from the party press and muckraking to radio, television and the internet, explains regulation by the Federal Communications Commission and the limits of press freedom, and reviews theories of media effects, including framing, priming and cultivation.

Chapter 9: Political Parties

The chapter explains how US parties formed, why plurality elections produce a two-party system, how party coalitions have realigned, and how parties are organised from the precinct to the national committee. It ends with divided government and partisan polarisation, discussing sorting and gerrymandering as possible causes.

Chapter 10: Interest Groups and Lobbying

Using the Affordable Care Act as a case, the chapter defines interest groups, explains free riding and selective incentives in group formation, discusses who joins, and maps pathways of influence (campaign support, PACs and super PACs, lobbying, litigation). It closes with the free-speech debate over regulating money in politics.

Chapter 11: Congress

The chapter covers the institutional design of Congress and its enumerated, implied and inherent powers, House and Senate elections and the advantages of incumbency, delegate and trustee models of representation, the organisation of leadership and committees, and the classic and modern legislative process, including the filibuster and what political scientists call "unorthodox" lawmaking.

Chapter 12: The Presidency

This chapter describes the creation and expansion of the presidency, the nomination and election process, transitions and appointments, the "public presidency" and the bully pulpit, and direct presidential action through executive orders, pardons, executive agreements and signing statements.

Chapter 13: The Courts

The courts are presented as guardians of the Constitution and of individual rights. The chapter explains the dual (federal and state) court system, the three tiers of federal courts and the role of precedent, how the Supreme Court selects and decides cases, and the internal and external factors and checks that shape and limit judicial decisions.

Chapter 14: State and Local Government

Here the focus shifts to the level of government closest to citizens: state power and fiscal relations with Washington, Daniel Elazar's typology of state political cultures, governors and state legislatures, the debate over legislative term limits, and forms of county and city government.

Chapter 15: The Bureaucracy

The chapter traces the growth of the federal bureaucracy from the spoils system to a merit-based civil service, presents models of bureaucracy from Weber's ideal type to self-interested models, distinguishes cabinet departments, independent agencies and government corporations, and explains rulemaking and oversight by Congress, the president and citizens.

Chapter 16: Domestic Policy

Opening with the Dakota Access pipeline dispute, the chapter defines public policy, classifies goods and policies (distributive, regulatory, redistributive), surveys social welfare, science and education, and business policy, introduces policy advocates and analysts and the stages of the policy process, and explains budgeting, fiscal policy and taxation.

Chapter 17: Foreign Policy

The final chapter sets out the objectives and challenges of US foreign policy, the instruments available (from drone strikes and summits to treaties and budgets), the shared powers of Congress and the president, and the main schools of thought: isolationism, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism, together with hard and soft power.

Key Concepts

Chapter 1: American Government and Civic Engagement

• Elite theory versus pluralism: whether a small wealthy group or competing organised interests drive government policy.
• Civic engagement: the many ways citizens take part in public life, from voting and contacting officials to volunteering and protest.

Chapter 2: The Constitution and Its Origins

• Separation of powers and checks and balances: dividing authority among branches so that each can limit the others.
• Federalists and Anti-Federalists: the two sides of the ratification debate, whose argument over a bill of rights shaped the first amendments.

Chapter 3: American Federalism

• Dual versus cooperative federalism: separate spheres of state and federal authority versus intertwined responsibilities ("marble cake").
• Grants and mandates: money and requirements the federal government uses to steer state and local action.

Chapter 4: Civil Liberties

• Selective incorporation: the case-by-case application of Bill of Rights protections to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Right to privacy: a right not spelled out in the Constitution but developed through laws and court precedents on abortion, sexual behaviour, internet activity and the privacy of phones and texts.

Chapter 5: Civil Rights

• Equal protection and levels of scrutiny: unequal treatment needs a rational basis, an important interest or a compelling interest depending on the characteristic involved.
• Jim Crow: post-Reconstruction laws that enforced segregation and disenfranchisement in the South.

Chapter 6: The Politics of Public Opinion

• Political socialisation: learning political attitudes from family, school, peers, religion and media.
• Representative sample and margin of error: the basis of a scientific poll and a measure of its precision.

Chapter 7: Voting and Elections

• Turnout measures: voting-age population, voting-eligible population and registered voters give different turnout figures.
• Super PACs and Citizens United: court rulings that loosened limits on independent campaign spending.

Chapter 8: The Media

• Agenda-setting, framing and priming: how coverage shapes what people think about and how they judge it.
• FCC regulation: limits on broadcast content and licensing that constrain press freedom in specific ways.

Chapter 9: Political Parties

• Two-party system: a product, in part, of plurality ("winner-take-all") elections.
• Polarisation and divided government: parties that are further apart and control different branches, making policy harder to pass.

Chapter 10: Interest Groups and Lobbying

• Free-rider problem and selective incentives: why people may not join groups that would benefit them, and the benefits groups offer only to members.
• Pathways of influence: lobbying, campaign contributions through PACs, litigation and public campaigns.

Chapter 11: Congress

• Enumerated, implied and inherent powers: the three sources of congressional authority.
• Delegate and trustee models: representing constituents' expressed wishes versus their interests as the legislator judges them.

Chapter 12: The Presidency

• Bully pulpit: the president's ability to speak to the nation with one voice.
• Executive orders and executive agreements: unilateral tools that act without Congress but lack the permanence of statutes and treaties.

Chapter 13: The Courts

• Judicial review and precedent: courts' power to check the other branches and their reliance on earlier decisions.
• Dual court system: parallel state and federal courts, each with its own jurisdiction.

Chapter 14: State and Local Government

• Elazar's political cultures: individualistic, moralistic and traditionalistic orientations towards politics.
• Term limits: caps on legislative service, defended as opening up politics and criticised for weakening experience.

Chapter 15: The Bureaucracy

• Merit-based civil service: hiring by ability and examination rather than party loyalty.
• Rulemaking and oversight: how agencies make binding rules and how elected officials and citizens control them.

Chapter 16: Domestic Policy

• Distributive, regulatory and redistributive policy: classifications based on who bears costs and who receives benefits.
• Fiscal policy: government use of spending and taxation, contrasted with laissez-faire and Keynesian approaches.

Chapter 17: Foreign Policy

• Foreign policy instruments: sharply focused outputs led by the president versus broad outputs involving Congress and other states.
• Isolationism, internationalism and neoconservatism: competing views of how actively and unilaterally the United States should act abroad.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear institutional sequence. As the preface states, the book moves from founding principles to participation and then to the structures of government; its five units ("Students and the System", "Individual Agency and Action", mediating institutions, formal institutions, outputs) give a logical path through a standard American government syllabus.
• Strong historical treatment of rights. The third-edition revisions expanded historical coverage of civil rights, and Chapter 5 gives separate sections to African Americans, women, Indigenous peoples and other groups, using Milestone and Insider Perspective boxes (for example on the East L.A. student walkouts, Charlotte Forten Grimké and Edith Windsor) to put people at the centre.
• Features that prompt argument. "Finding a Middle Ground" boxes pose genuine tradeoffs (term limits, affirmative action, banning exit polls, how much direct democracy is too much), and each chapter ends with critical thinking questions in addition to multiple-choice and short-answer review questions.
• Useful primary sources and answers. Appendices reproduce the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, along with an Electoral College map and a list of key Supreme Court cases, and an answer key covers the odd-numbered review questions.

Limitations

• Superseded edition. OpenStax now lists the third edition as retired and has published American Government 4e (2025). The 3e examples stop around 2021 (the transition to a new administration, COVID-19), so readers who want later elections and court decisions should check the newer edition.
• US-only scope. Comparative material is minimal, which suits a US government course but leaves students without a frame for how American institutions differ from parliamentary systems.
• Occasional inconsistency. The end-of-chapter summary for Section 17.4 describes neoconservatism as a retreat from foreign involvement, while the body of the same section defines it as favouring assertive, unilateral action; students should rely on the main text.
• Summaries more than analysis. Theories (elite and pluralist models, models of bureaucracy, media-effects research) are introduced briefly, and the political science research behind them is mostly summarised rather than examined, so the book suits an introductory survey better than a research-oriented course.

Where It Fits in the Course

This book sits alongside Richard Valelly's American Politics: A Very Short Introduction. Valelly offers a compact essay-length overview; the OpenStax text is a full course textbook with chapter-by-chapter coverage, review questions and primary documents, so the two complement each other. The Logic of American Politics (Kernell et al.) and We the People (Ginsberg et al.) are textbooks covering similar ground, and are generally described as more analytically driven; students can use OpenStax first, or as a free companion, before moving to them.

Two other titles are monographs rather than textbooks. Aldrich's Why Parties? A Second Look and Mayhew's Congress: The Electoral Connection develop arguments about parties and congressional behaviour that Chapters 9 and 11 here introduce only at survey level (polarisation, incumbency advantage, representation). They are best read after those chapters.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for a one-semester introductory American government course and assumes no previous political science; some familiarity with US history helps with Chapters 2 and 5. A typical plan follows the units in order: Chapters 1–3 on founding and federalism; Chapters 4–5 on liberties and rights; Chapters 6–10 on opinion, elections, media, parties and groups; Chapters 11–15 on institutions; and Chapters 16–17 on policy. Chapter 14 (state and local government) and Chapter 17 (foreign policy) can be dropped in a short course.

Read each module's learning objectives first, then check understanding with the end-of-chapter summary and review questions, using the answer key for odd-numbered items. Keep the appended Constitution and Federalist papers open while reading Chapters 2, 3 and 11–13. The "Link to Learning" boxes point to sites with current data on polls, budgets and elections, which is a practical way to update examples that have dated.

Edition and Sources

This guide is based on American Government 3e (OpenStax, 2021), read in the official free web PDF linked from https://openstax.org/details/books/american-government-3e; OpenStax now marks this edition as retired and offers a fourth edition. The guide draws on the preface (including the third-edition changes and feature descriptions), the full table of contents, and for all 17 chapters the introductions, every section heading, the section summaries and sample review and critical thinking questions, together with feature-box titles, the appendices list, the answer key format and the Section 17.4 discussion of neoconservatism.