The fifth edition of this seminal textbook by best-selling author Andrew Heywood continues to lead the way in providing a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to politics. Renowned for its engaging and accessible style, this book helps students to understand the discipline’s foundational concepts and theories and use these to make sense of its key subfields, from elections and voting to security and global governance.

Systematically revised and updated throughout, it also uses a range of tried-and-tested pedagogical features to draw links between different standpoints and help make contemporary institutions, events and developments come to life. Drawing on a wide range of international examples, this text is the ideal choice for lecturers around the world.

Carefully designed and written to map onto the way the subject is introduced at degree level, it remains the go-to text for undergraduate introductory and comparative politics courses. Furthermore, it can also be used as pre-course reading or as a point of reference throughout politics degrees, majors or minors.

This companion website comprises a number of resources for students and lecturers which can be used in tandem with and in addition to the textbook:

For students

• Additional Politics in Action cases
  A further 16 case studies illustrating politics at work in the real world today.
• Flashcard glossary
  Test yourself on the definitions of key terms highlighted throughout the book with flashcards and quizzes.
• Interactive simulations
  A number of simulations based on topics found throughout the book test your decision-making skills and illustrate the tricky business of making difficult political decisions.
• Links to data
  Links to, and descriptions of, five important datasets which you could use for further research and investigation.
• Weblinks
  Links to important websites related to each chapter of the text.

For lecturers:

- Guide to the book

A chapter-by-chapter guide outlining how you can use the book in your teaching, featuring suggestions for group discussion topics, reflections, data exercises, suggestions for using the simulations and other activities and assignments for students.

- PowerPoint slides

Slides for each chapter provide a summary of the key points in the book, along with figures. These can be used as they are or adapted for use in the classroom.

- Testbank

A collection of 500 multiple-choice questions (25 per chapter) that can be used for student assessment.