Approaching Democracy: American Government in Times of Challenge

Author: Larry Berman

Edition: 10th Edition

Publisher: Routledge

Publication Date: August 28, 2023

ISBN-13: 978-1000856293

Democracy cannot be taken for granted, whether at home or internationally, and eternal vigilance along with civic intelligence is required to protect it. Approaching Democracy provides students with a framework to analyze the structure, process, and action of US government, institutions, and social movements. This text invites comparison with other countries, offering a globalizing perspective that gives students an understanding of issues of governance and challenges to democracy here and elsewhere. At a moment of political hyper-partisanship, economic tensions, media misinformation, and anxieties about the future of civil rights, this textbook—based on Vaclav Havel’s powerful metaphor of democracy as an ideal and the American experiment as the closest approach to it—is designed for a new generation of political science undergraduate students.

New to the Tenth Edition:

• Updated Political Landscape: Reflects the results of the 2022 midterm elections and explores the implications of Congressional redistricting, voting suppression, and voting rights legislation.
• Executive Branch Coverage: Covers the first two years of the Biden administration and provides a thorough retrospective on the Trump presidency.
• Current Investigations: Includes updates on the January 6 Commission findings and the Justice Department’s investigation into the alleged misappropriation of classified government documents.
• Global Perspectives: Continues to provide a comparative framework to help students understand the American political system within a worldwide context of democratic challenges.