This course is about politics, government, public policy and the individuals who occupy that critical space which we refer to as “the political arena.” Those who occupy the political arena are many, and include elected officials and aspirants to elective office; political parties and interest groups who seek to determine who gets elected and what elected officials do once in office; and civil servants and appointed officials who staff the governmental bureaucracy and who take care that policies are executed and laws and regulations are duly enforced. “We the people,” voters and non-voters—taxpayers all, also play varied roles in the dramatis personae who populate and sustain American democracy.