DANIEL J. ELAZAR
West Virginia Politics and Government is the sixteenth book in the Center for the Study of Federalism and University of Nebraska Press series, Politics and Governments of the American States. The aim of the series is to provide books on the politics and government of the individual states that appeal to political scientists, their students, and the public. Each volume in the series examines the state's political culture, traditions and practices, constituencies and interest groups, and constitutional and institutional frameworks. They also review the state's political development to demonstrate how its political institutions and characteristics have evolved from the first settlement to the present, presenting the state in the context of the nation and section of which it is a part, and reviewing the state's role and relations vis-à-vis its sister states and the federal government. The state's constitutional history, its traditions of constitution making and constitutional change, is examined and related to the workings of the state's political institutions and processes. State-local relations, local government, and community politics are examined. Finally, each volume reviews the state's major policy concerns and their implementation and concludes by summarizing its principal themes and findings and drawing conclusions about the current state of the state, its continuing traditions, and emerging issues. Each volume also contains a bibliographic survey of the existing literature on the state and a guide to the use of that literature and state government documents to assist the reader in learning more about the state and its political system. Although the books in the series are not expected to be uniform, all focus on the common themes of federalism, constitutionalism, political culture, and the continuing American frontier to provide a framework within which to consider the institutions, routines, and processes of state government and politics.
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