ME Sharpe Professor

“The best textbook available today for courses on local government.” (*)

Unlike most competing texts that are densely written and heavily theoretical, with little flavor of political life, this book is a readable, jargon-free introduction to real-life local politics for today’s students. While it encompasses local government and politics in cities and towns across America, this book gives special attention to the politics of suburbia, where many students live, and encourages them to become engaged in their own communities. The book is also distinguished by its strong emphasis on nuts-and-bolts practical politics. It provides focused discussion of institutions, roles, and personalities as well as the dynamic environment of local politics (demographics, immigration, globalization, etc.) and major policy issues (budgets, land use, transportation, education, etc.). Many other texts treat communities as abstractions and readers as passive observers. The authors have designed this book to inspire civic engagement as well as understanding. It features “In Your Community” research projects for students in every chapter along with informative tables, clear charts, essential terms, and guides to useful websites.

Endorsements:

“Local Politics is the best textbook available today for courses on local government. Demonstrating knowledge of the scholarly literature, it has great content. It s also written in a manner accessible to students and has great resources such as glossaries, key terms, listings of related Internet sites, and practical research exercises.” — Michael Coulter, Grove City College (*)

“In a field where most of the textbooks focus on ‘urban politics,’ this is a rarity — a book focused on how governing happens at the local level, whether urban, suburban, or rural. I have found that perspective to be very useful and very accessible to my students. The book does an excellent job of providing important context for local politics from the very beginning, and it is very helpful in connecting students with real world issues in local government. In many ways the strongest thing is that the book is truly about local politics when so many others are combined state and local politics texts, or are specifically focused on cities and urban government rather than local politics broadly defined.” — David Redlawsk, University of Iowa

“A compelling work designed to encourage participation at the grassroots. ...A work that is a must-read, not only for students of American government but for the general citizenry as well. ...The authors have made a contribution to applied political science that ranks with the works of Paul P. Van Riper, Frank R. Kent, and Mark R. Warner.” —Perspectives on Political Science