Keeping the Republic: Power and Citizenship in American Politics

View the interactive ebook here here

The power of critical thinking and interactivityà Artfully weaving in the analytic theme of ôpowerö and the evaluative theme of ôcitizenship,ö Barbour and Wright deftly draw students into thinking critically about how and why institutions and rules determine who wins and who loses in American politics. At the core of Keeping the RepublicÆs engaging discussion of ′who gets what and how,′ is the objective of helping students become actively engaged, critical thinkers. Each section and every feature in the book has one goal in mind: to get students to think analytically and be skeptical of received wisdom. It doesnÆt matter how students get their news and information û from a popular blog or a traditional media outletùBarbour and Wright give students the tools they need to be thoughtful, savvy consumers of political information and data. With the publication of the sixth edition, Keeping the Republic is now a full-fledged, integrated Media Edition. When students purchase a new print copy of the book they receive FREE access to an enhanced ebook. Through a series of icons, students link to multimedia assetsùincluding audio, video, data, articles, reference, and CQ Researcher reportsùright where it matters most: on the exact page where a topic is discussed. Students can immediately take a deeper dive and explore an important concept or idea while reading. Instructors will appreciate that assessment is built into the functionality of the ebook. Students take chapter quizzes and work through ôCLUES to Critical Thinkingö questions with all quiz results and answers feeding an instructor gradebook to efficiently track participation and comprehension. ItÆs an enhanced, enriching, and interactive learning experience. By introducing students to the seminal work in the field, showing them how to employ the themes of power and citizenship, and taking full advantage of what multimedia can add to the learning experience, this proven text builds confidence in students who want to take an active part in their communities and government--to play their part in keeping the republic.

Christine Barbour teaches in the Political Science Department at Indiana University, and directs the department’s IU POLS DC internship program. She is a faculty liaison for the University’s dual-credit program, which delivers an online version of her Intro to American Politics class to high school students across the state. At Indiana, Professor Barbour has been a Lilly Fellow, working on a project to increase student retention in large introductory courses, and a member of the Freshman Learning Project, a university-wide effort to improve the first-year undergraduate experience. She has served on the New York Times College Advisory Board, working with other educators to develop ways to integrate newspaper reading into the undergraduate curriculum. She has won multiple teaching honors, but the two awarded by her students mean the most to her: the Indiana University Student Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty and the Indiana University Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Brown Derby Award. When not teaching or writing textbooks, Professor Barbour enjoys traveling with her coauthor, blogging about food and travel, and playing with her dogs and cat. She contributes to Bloom Magazine of Bloomington and is a coauthor several cookbooks. She also makes jewelry from precious metals and rough gemstones. If she ever retires, she will open a jewelry shop in a renovated Airstream on the beach in Apalachicola, Florida, where she plans to write another cookbook and a book about the local politics, development, and fishing industry.

Gerald C. Wright taught political science at Indiana University from 1981 until his recent retirement. An accomplished scholar of American politics, and the 2010 winner of the State Politics and Policy Association’s Career Achievement Award, his work includes Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States (1993), coauthored with Robert S. Erikson and John P. McIver, and more than fifty articles on elections, public opinion, and state politics. Professor Wright’s research interests focus on representation – the fundamental relationship among citizens, their preferences, and public policy. He writes primarily about state politics, representation, political parties, and inequality.

He is currently working on a book about parties and representation in U.S. legislatures. He has been a consultant for Project Vote Smart for a number of years and was a founding member of Indiana University’s Freshman Learning Project. In retirement, Professor Wright grows vegetables, golfs, fishes, travels, and plays with his dogs and cat. He is an awesome cook.