A Republic If You Can Keep it - Constitutional Politics and Public Policy (Paperback)

For undergraduate Introduction to Public Policy and Public Policy Analysis courses; honors or point-of-view courses in American Government and Public Policy; and graduate seminars on American Government and Public Policy.

Setting out to prove that constitutional politics is relevant to our lives and not just an abstraction, this probing text helps students make the transition from the study of American government to the study of public policy—shedding remarkable insight on the state of America's government as it highlights the seemingly permanent and significant connection between constitutional principles, the way they are exploited by politicians, and how they shape the character of public policy as a whole. Presenting an institutional analysis approach that is noticeably underplayed in most public policy texts, it focuses on themes common to an introductory American government course but with a rigorous concentration on the impact of these institutions on how policy decisions are made, together with assessments of whether the impact is favorable or unfavorable—and why.