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Designed to showcase current issues of interest, Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, Volume 2 isthe second reader consisting of updated chapters from recent issues of Commonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy. The editors and contributors to this volume focus on government institutions, election laws, the judiciary, government finance and budgeting, the opioid crisis, childcare, property taxes, environmental policy, demographics, and more. Each chapter is supplemented by discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and forums with arguments in support of or opposed to contested elements of state policy.

In addition, Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, Volume 2 includes a detailed guide to researching state government and policy online, as well as a comprehensive chapter on the structure of Pennsylvania government. It is designed as a text or supplement for college or advanced high school classes in American government, state and local politics, public policy, and public administration. 

Contributors include: John Arway, Jenna Becker Kane, Jeffrey Carroll, Bob Dick, Ashley Harden, Stefanie I. Kasparek, Vera Krekanova, Maureen W. McClure, John F. McDonald, Josh Shapiro, Marc Stier, Jennie Sweet-Cushman, James Vike, and the editors.

The activities of state governments have always been important in the American federal system. However, recent partisan gridlock in Washington, DC has placed states at the forefront of policymaking as the national government maintains the status quo. Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, Volume 1 is designed to showcase current issues of interest to Pennsylvanians. This reader contains updated chapters from recent issues of Commonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy on education, health care, public finance, tax policy, environmental policy, alcohol policy and more. Each chapter is supplemented by forums with arguments in support of or opposed to contested elements of state policy, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading. 

In addition, Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, Volume 1 includes a comprehensive guide to researching state government and policy online. It is designed as a text or supplement for college or advanced high school classes in American government, state and local politics, public policy, and public administration. 

Contributors include: David G. Argall, Tom Baldino, Michele Deegan, Michael Dimino, George Hale, Rachel L. Hampton , Paula Duda Holoviak Jon Hopcraft, Vera Krekanova, Maureen W. McClure, Barry G. Rabe, Marguerite Roza, Lanethea Mathews Shultz, Jennie Sweet-Cushman, Amanda Warco, and the editors.

The Persian Gulf crisis may well have been the most extensively polled episode in U.S. history as President Bush, his opponents, and even Saddam Hussein appealed to, and tried to influence, public opinion. As well documented as this phenomenon was, it remains largely unexplained. John Mueller provides an account of the complex relationship between American policy and public opinion during the Gulf crisis.

Mueller analyzes key issues: the actual shallowness of public support for war; the effect of public opinion on the media (rather than the other way around); the use and misuse of polls by policy makers; the American popular focus on Hussein's ouster as a central purpose of the War; and the War's short-lived impact on voting. Of particular interest is Mueller's conclusion that Bush succeeded in leading the country to war by increasingly convincing the public that it was inevitable, rather than right or wise.

Throughout, Mueller, author of War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, an analysis of public opinion during the Korean and Vietnam wars, places this analysis of the Gulf crisis in a broad political and military context, making comparisons to wars in Panama, Vietnam, Korea, and the Falklands, as well as to World War II and even the War of 1812. The book also collects nearly 300 tables charting public opinion through the Gulf crisis, making Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War an essential reference for anyone interested in recent American politics, foreign policy, public opinion, and survey research.

The bureaucracy is the fourth branch of government, often receiving attention in times of emergency or when it is the object of criticism from the media or politicians. Less understood is how bureaucratic institutions function in a democracy, both from an organizational perspective and as institutional participants within the political arena. Drawing on rational choice approaches, computationally intensive data and modeling techniques, and systematic empirical inquiry, this original collection of essays highlights the important role bureaucracies play in shaping public policy-making. The editors of and contributors to this volume demonstrate not only the constraints political officials face in harnessing the bureaucracy but, more important, how bureaucracies function as organizational entities in diverse contexts.

George A. Krause is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of South Carolina.

Kenneth J. Meier is Charles Puryear Professor of Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University.

In industrialized societies, professionals have long been valued and set apart from other workers because of their specialized knowledge and skill. But has their role in these societies declined? Of what significance are they today?

In this concise synthesis of the major debates about the professions since World War II, Eliot Freidson explores several broad questions about professionalism today—what it is, what its future is likely to be, and its value to public policy. Freidson argues that because professionalism is based on specialized knowledge, it is distinct from either bureaucratic or market-based forms of work. He predicts a rebirth of the professions during which practitioners lose some of their independence and become more accountable to standards of a professional elite. And, defending professionalism as a desirable method of providing complex, discretionary services to the public, Freidson argues that market-based or bureaucratic methods would impoverish the quality of service to consumers, and suggests ways the virtues of professionalism can be reinforced.

The most accessible survey available of almost fifty years of theory and research by the scholar whose own work helped define the field, this book will appeal to the growing international body of scholars concerned with studying and theorizing about the professions.