Government by the People

Book excerpt: "As the title of our book suggests, we view the idea of government by the people as a defining element of American politics and government. From the Mayflower Compact to the Declaration of Independence to the expansion of rights and liberties to more and more citizens in the last century, we have expanded on the idea of self-government. Too often, Americans take their basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for granted. But these rights were guaranteed neither by those who wrote our Constitution nor by the citizens who have worked, one generation after another, to expand these rights and set our government's course. Rather, government by the people today depends on citizens who are informed and involved in the decisions and processes of our constitutional democracy. We have written this book with the aim of informing you about why you have a stake in our government. In this edition, we have gone a step further to argue that you can have an impact on government at all levels if you understand how government works-what we call structure-and if you are willing to act on your knowledge. Our idea can be summarized as follows: knowledge of structure + action = impact. We will develop this focus in each chapter"--