Fixing American Government: Ending Gridlock and Apathy with a 21st Century Constitution - Paperback

by Jeffrey R. Orenstein Ph. D. (Author)

American government is broken. This is an instruction manual on how to fix it. Gridlock, hyper-partisanship and unlimited campaign spending by self-interested billionaires and interest groups have replaced rational public policy making, bi-partisanship and grassroots campaigns. Worse yet, too many politicians show little or no respect for the democratic process and for voters. The costs of this are enormous. We have gridlock and ineffective government that can't deal adequately with a growing set of foreign and domestic challenges. It also depresses voter turnout, discourages good people from running for political office and leads to apathy, lack of civic IQ and a dangerous civic cynicism. This book is a non-partisan analysis of how this came about and how we as citizens can fix it by enhancing elements of democracy already in our political system. It is a must-read for political activists, office-holders and would-be office holders, political pundits and bloggers, journalists on the politics and government beat, campaign consultants and anybody who wants to know why American government doesn't work very well and how we can start to fix it.

Author Biography

Jeffrey R. Orenstein earned his B.A. from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, all in political science. His first career was in education, starting as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at a large public university in Ohio in the 1970's and taking an early retirement as a full professor 25 years later. He is the co-author of several widely-adopted books in the field, including An Introduction to Political Theory (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), coauthored with Robert Booth Fowler, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U. S. Rail Policy: Uncle Sam at the Throttle (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1990), Contemporary Issues in Political Theory, Revised Edition (New York: Greenwood, 1985). Co-authored with Robert Booth Fowler, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Contemporary Issues in Political Theory (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1977). His current career is in journalism. He is the Publisher and Executive Editor of Living On The Suncoast Magazine, entering its tenth year of publication and has been the executive editor of The Gulf Coast Business Review, both in Sarasota. He has written numerous articles on transportation and technology issues for national magazines and his most recent book before Fixing American Government is You Can Write A Book: How To Write What You Know and Self-Publish Your Way to Success, (Sarasota, Suncoast Digital Press, 2013), co-authored with Barbara Bingham. He and his wife Virginia live in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.