The Drama of the American Political System (Paperback)

"The Drama of the American Political System" is a volume of canonical essays discussing the head and heart of American national politics. Exploring the full panoply of American national politics, these essays collectively suggest that our political system may best be understood as a dramatic metaphor. This metaphor asks us to watch the play of American politics in a theater representative of our polity. We will look across a stage that fragments power horizontally and vertically, and to a background of unifying characteristics called the American political culture. While in the foreground, we will see an arrangement of actors that originate from a core of national political institutions. From there we move out to a semi-periphery of political organizations, and finally disappear into the shadows where the media, political participators, and public opinion make their presence felt.
The essays in The Drama of the American Political System are organized into five acts: Act I: The Setting; The American National Political Culture The Ends Upon Which We All Agree; Act II: The Stage; The Constitutional-Federal Structure Horizontal and Vertical Fragmentation of Power; Act III: The Core; The American National Political Institutions The Centers of Policymaking Power Congress; Act IV The Semi-Periphery of National Political Organizations The Direct Influencers of Power; Act V The Periphery of Phantoms The Indirect Influencers of Power Inner Periphery: The Political Media
Matthew Mark Caverly was born in Woodruff, Wisconsin on May 6, 1971. He graduated from Vero Beach Sr. High School in 1990, served in the U.S. Army for three years, and attended college and graduate school at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and works as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida. He primarily researches and teaches in the area of American Government and Politics."