This book, complete with exercises and answers, forms a course which will take you from beginner or intermediate level to having a firm grasp of the main topics in politics and government.

Table of Contents

• How to use this book
• 1 Key issues in the study of politics
• Political culture
• States and governments
• The role of the state
• Power, authority and legitimacy
• The rule of law
• Equality
• 2 Liberal democracy
• Political systems
• Democracy and liberal democracy?
• Legislators and public opinion
• Referendums
• 3 Political ideologies
• What is political ideology?
• The political spectrum
• Left-wing political ideologies
• Feminism
• The centre and centre-left of the political spectrum
• Right-wing political ideologies
• 4 Elections and electoral systems
• The significance of elections
• The cost of election campaigns
• The mandate
• Voting behaviour
• Opinion polls
• The first-past-the-post electoral system and its variants
• Proportional representation
• The first-past-the-post electoral system analysed
• Proportional representation analysed
• 5 Political parties and party systems
• Parties and party systems
• Determinants of party systems
• The role of political parties
• The decline of party?
• 6 Pressure groups
• Definition
• The role of pressure groups
• Political parties and pressure groups
• Classification of pressure groups
• The activities of pressure groups
• The international arena
• Pressure group influence
• The strengths and weaknesses of pressure group activity
• 7 Protest
• What is protest?
• Petitions
• Demonstrations
• Direct action
• Civil disobedience
• Industrial disputes
• Riots
• The state's response to protest
• 8 The media and politics
• The role of the media in a liberal democracy
• The role of the media
• Problems posed by the media
• The political influence of the media
• Cross-media ownership
• 9 Constitutions and human rights
• What is a constitution?
• Constitutions as living history
• The role of a constitution
• Keeping codified constitutions up to date
• The United Kingdom's uncodified constitution
• 10 The executive branch of government
• The role of the executive branch of government
• Parliamentary and presidential forms of government
• Relations within the executive branch
• How chief executives are chosen
• Cabinet government in the United Kingdom
• The power of chief executives
• The chief executive's bureaucracy
• Heads of state
• Chief executives in the UK and USA since 1945
• 11 The bureaucracy
• The role of the bureaucracy
• How is the machinery of government organized?
• The civil service as a ruling elite
• Administrators and politics
• Minister–civil servant relationships in the UK
• Political control of the bureaucracy
• Reform of the civil service
• Freedom of information and official secrecy
• 12 The legislative branch of government
• The functions of legislatures
• The operations of legislatures
• Bicameral and unicameral legislatures
• Changes affecting the power and authority of legislatures
• The continued vitality of legislatures
• 13 The judicial branch of government
• What do the courts do?
• The organization of the courts in England and Wales
• Judicial interpretation
• The politics of the judiciary
• Judicial office holding
• 14 Sub-national government
• Definition of sub-national government
• Federalism
• Regionalism
• Local government
• Central control and local autonomy
• Local government reform in Britain
• 15 The nation state in the modern world
• Sovereignty and nationalism
• Threats to external sovereignty
• The European Union
• The main institutions of the European Union
• Key policies of the EU
• EU–USA relationships
• 16 International terrorism
• Definition of terrorism
• Terrorist aims and objectives
• Terrorist tactics
• Old versus new terrorism
• State reaction to terrorism
• Why are terrorist campaigns hard to counter?
• Glossary
• Answers to fact-check questions