Politics and the American Future [antikvár]

Preface Since the publication of the first edition of Politics and the American Future in 1983, important scholars and social critics have continued to express concern about the future of American democracy and America's role in the world. These years have seen a growing precariousness in America's economic position, increasingly bitter balkanization of domestic politics, larger income gaps between rich and poor, and continued challenges to historic values of freedom and civil liberties. All of these challenges are important to our well being as a society, and none of these challenges will disappear as we move toward the twenty-first century. Describing how our political system grapples with these challenges and assessing its ability to deal with them effectively is the main theme of this book. Two corollary themes weave through the book, and they relate to two fundamental sea changes that have been taking place in American politics over the past generation: ? the increasingly powerful and influential role of the media; ? the important role of litigation and courts in the American political process. Examples of these two phenomena in today's political scene abound: Item, media: Presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections in xiv