Course Description

This is an introductory survey of state and local politics in the United States. The course is designed to help students better understand the political institutions and processes of regional governments. These governments have vastly increased their policy responsibilities since the 1980s and are the most involved in their citizens’ day-to-day lives. The general approach to this topic is comparative in nature, that is, the focus is on the variation among regional governments in an attempt to come to some understanding of why these differences exist and what effect they have on government decision making.