Politics and Voters

The words "politics" and "government" are simply convenient labels for the way people behave when facing certain problems that have bedeviled men everywhere since the dawn of history. The first part of this book is concerned with the basic unit of all political behavior, the individual human being. It outlines what social scientists have learned about the way people in the United States acquire their politi cal attitudes and about the political actions they take as a consequence of their attitudes.

The second part deals with some of the principal organizations and institutions through which Ameri cans attempt to influence their governments. Particu lar attention is paid to the composition, organization, and activities of political parties and pressure groups. The final chapter discusses the principal legal chan nel by which parties, pressure groups, and ordinary individuals have traditionally brought their political influence to bear: the proposing and electing of can didates for public office.

Throughout the volume we have tried to present the main facts now known about the way these affairs are ordered in the United States and have. offered a number of generalized explanations of these facts. The reader is invited to check both facts and explanations against his own experience and under standing. True learning, after all, is not a monologue inflicted on the student by the teacher but a dialogue between them from which each gains a better under standing of the bewildering but fascinating world in which he lives.