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This introductory political science textbook covers many of the same standard topics as typical--mass communications, political parties and ideologies, elections, interest groups, the presidency, the bureaucracy, the Congress, the courts, federalism, civil rights, and national security--but it is "uncommon" in that it is guided throughout by the theoretical understanding that the elites, not the masses, govern the United States (just like all societies). In addition to describing how elite theory explains the institutions and dynamics of American politics, they contrast their perspective with classic democratic theory and modern pluralist theory throughout the text.