Rodney E. Hero is Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also the author of Latinos and the U.S. Political System (1992), which won the American Political Science Association's Ralph Bunche Award for 1993.

Rodney Hero confronts directly the weaknesses of Elazar's political culture thesis as the explanation for state-level political behavior and public policy decisions. Building on V. O. Key's belief that race is at the center of Southern politics, Hero expands on Key to argue that race is at the center of state politics in general. This is a provocative and important book that provides a new prism through which to view both state politics and public policy in America.

• 1: Social Diversity and the Study of State Politics and Policy 2: The Social Diversity Interpretation in Perspective: Reviewing Other Approaches Explaining State Politics 3: Social Diversity and Political Institutions, Political Processes, and Attitudes 4: Social Diversity and Formal Institutions of State Government 5: Social Diversity and State Public Policies, I: Education, Health, Welfare 6: Social Diversity and State Public Policies, II: Other Politics 7: Social Diversity at the Substate Level 8: The Social Diversity Interpretation of State Politics and Policy in Perspective