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Political Science *

Below are links to databases and scholarly web sites that support the study of political science and its related sub-disciplines.

Results

The Center for Presidential Transition has multiple information resources on the upcoming transition between the Biden Administration and the second Trump Administration.

California Resources

NONPARTISAN VOTER GUIDES

  • California Official Voter Information Guide – this is the official site provided by the office of the California Secretary of State, Dr. Shirley N. Weber.
  • CalMatters 2024 Voter Guide – an organization with a mission to improve California’s democracy by making its government more transparent and accountable by giving Californians the information required to understand and engage with the government.
  • CalMatter Digital Democracy Legislator Tracker – a resource to locate your California legislator and determine their voting record and how to contact them.
  • CalMatters Explainers – topics include the most important issues facing California from wildfires, gun control, high cost of living to the water crisis. CalMatters explainers provide the data-driven context needed to understand key issues confronting the Golden State. Site includes Check Water and Drought Tracker, Wildfires tracker, and Homelessness trackers.
  • Vote411 – this is a resource of bipartisan election information managed by the League of Women Voters of California. It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information.

VOTING RESOURCES

  • BallotTrax Tool – a site that can be used to track your ballot and view when it is mailed, received, and counted.
  • California Ballot Propositions and Initiatives – site provides full-text of California ballot propositions from 1911 to the present. It provides the summary of the proposition, title, years, and voting results.
  • California Online Voter Registration – an online form that allows you to register to vote in California. To register, you will need to have your California driver license or California identification card number, provide the last four digits of your social security number, and your date of birth.
  • California Voter Foundation – a nonprofit organization that provides a comprehensive voter guide for California elections, information on voting registration, and a directory and map of California voting systems as well as current news.
  • Find Your Polling Place: California – a frequently updated directory of polling places produced by the office of the California Secretary of State. Helpful resource for students living on or near campus who want to know where the closest polling station or ballot drop box is located.
  • JoinCalifornia: Election History for the State of California – an online archive of California election results. Records currently include state legislative races since 1898, and federal and the statewide offices since 1849. The site includes a link to 2024 races.
  • My Voter Status: California Secretary of State – this tool allows you to confirm if you are registered to vote, where you are registered to vote, your political party preference, your language preference for election materials, and more.
  • Voter's Choice Act List of Counties – information about counties that have adopted the Voter's Choice Act in 2022, which requires participating counties to describe how the county will administer elections under the VCA and include their plans to educate and offer outreach to the public.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

Los Angeles Resources

VOTING RESOURCES--Progressive

  • Courage California – this site is intended to help voters evaluate candidates and measures from a progressive perspective in order to make informed decisions at the ballot box.
  • DSA-LA Primary Voter Guide – this is a guide to races within the eighty-eight municipal governments and school boards of Los Angeles County with recommendations from a socialist or progressive perspective.
  • Knock LA's Voting Guide – a journalistic project of Ground Game LA with recommendations made after extensive research by a team of the organization’s editors and writers.
  • LAist.com Voter Game Plan – a comprehensive, easy-to-use site that explains and covers everything about voting in Los Angeles County. This is an excellent resource for reviewing local elections at every level, including profiles of candidates and ballot initiatives.

VOTING RESOURCES--Conservative

  • Republican Party of Los Angeles County – mission is to advance the principles, ideals, and policies of the Republican Party and aid in the election of Republican candidates for public office. Site includes a list of local candidate endorsements.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

Research Resources

ELECTION ANALYSIS

  • American National Election Studies – this organization produces data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation, providing access to tables and graphs that display the ebb and flow of public opinion, electoral behavior, and choice in American politics over time.
  • CQ Voting and Elections Collection – integrates a broad range of data, authoritative analyses, concise explanations, and historical material concerning the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
  • Economist Intelligence Unit Viewpoint, U.S. Elections -- the EIU provides in-depth analysis, insight, and data on political and economic trends throughout the world. When entering the database, click on the current themes drop-down menu at the top of the page and choose 2024 U.S. elections to view the latest analytical essays focused on the wide-ranging implications of the U.S. elections in relation to geopolitics and the global economy. The site also includes the Trump Risk Index, which provide in-depth analysis of a potential Trump presidency and its implications for the global economy.
  • Elections Performance Index – a comparison of election administration policy and performance across the states and from one election cycle to the next. The index presented is based on the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2020 elections. Useful for identifying past trends and comparing them with emerging rends in the 2024 election cycle.
  • Pew Research Center: U.S. Elections and Voters – a nonpartisan organization that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.

RESEARCH DATABASES--Multidisciplinary

  • JSTOR -- a multidisciplinary archive of scholarly journal articles covering most major disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Useful for identifying historical research on a topic; it does not cover current research published within the last three to five years.
  • Policy Commons -- platform for objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The database provides advanced searching across millions of pages of books, articles, working papers, reports, policy briefs, data sets, tables, charts, media, case studies, and statistical publications, including archived reports from more than 200 defunct think tanks. Coverage is international in scope.
  • ProQuest Multiple -- a database with extensive full-text and linked coverage of scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers. Good place to begin your search for scholarly journal articles or current news coverage on any topic related to elections and campaigns.

RESEARCH DATABASES--Disciplinary

  • America: History and Life -- database that covers the history of the United States and Canada. It includes key English-language historic journals, selected historic journals from major countries, state and local history journals, and selected relevant journals in the social sciences and humanities.
  • Historical Abstracts -- this database includes key history journals from major countries, as well as relevant selected journals from the social sciences and humanities. Covers world history outside of the United States and Canada. All abstracts are in English. This is a good source for understanding the history of U.S. elections and campaigns as seen through the eyes of scholars outside of the United States and Canada.
  • Public Administration Abstracts -- provides information on public administration-related publications worldwide covering such areas as administration and economy, administration and politics, administration and society, administrative structures and organization, public and social services, public service personnel, and theory and method.
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts -- provides indexing of the international journal literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration and policy. Over 1,700 titles are monitored for coverage and, of these, 67% are published outside of the United States. Excellent source to obtain political and public policy research on American elections and campaigns at all levels of government.

RESEARCH DATABASES--Specific Populations

  • AgeLine -- provides access to aging-related content from the health sciences, psychology, sociology, social work, economics, and public policy. Sources include scholarly journals, books, book chapters, reports, dissertations, consumer guides, and educational videos from 1966-present. Key source for studying age-related policy issues.
  • Chicano Database -- bibliographic index focuses on the Mexican-American and Chicano experience, and the broader Latino experience of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans and Central American immigrants since 1992. Covers Chicano/a art, education, folklore, health. history, labor, language and literature, music, politics, public policy, religion, sociology, and women's studies.
  • Child Development and Adolescent Studies -- provides citations to current and historical social and behavioral sciences literature related to growth and development of children through the age of 21, including book reviews, abstracts from hundreds of journals, technical reports, books, book chapters, and theses and dissertations. Good place for research on issues related to attitudes and voting behavior among youth aged 18-21 years old.
  • Ethnic NewsWatch -- includes coverage of scholarly journals, trade journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, as well as important grass-roots publications from ethnic and minority presses predominately in the United States from 1959 to the present. This is very important database for gaining a perspective and understanding about issues, such as voting behavior, related to underrepresented and indigenous communities.
  • Family Studies Abstracts -- this database includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to family studies, including marriage, divorce, family therapy, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. This is a resource that can be help identify research on the relationships between elections, campaigns, voting behavior and their influence on family dynamics.
  • GenderWatch -- a full-text database that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas. Publications include academic and scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and pamphlets, conference proceedings, and government, NGO and special reports. Helpful for understanding women in politics.
  • LGBT Life -- the premier resource to the world's literature regarding Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual issues with coverage that includes traditional academic, lifestyle, and regional publications, as well as non-periodical content such as non-fiction books, bibliographies and dissertations. A resource to identify political research studies about LGBT+ communities.

NEWS SOURCES

STATISTICS

  • California Elections Data Archive – a single repository of local election data that includes candidates, ballot measure results for county, city, community college, and school district elections throughout the State. Election data from county election offices and websites are collected and these local election results are entered into an electronic CEDA database. This database is used to generate three standard CEDA reports: 1) County Elections: Candidates, ballot designations, and vote totals for all elected county offices as well as vote totals and text for county ballot measures; 2) City Elections: Candidates, ballot designations, and vote totals for all elected city offices and vote totals and text for all city ballot measures; and, 3) Community College and School District Elections: Candidates, ballot designations, and vote totals for all elective community college and school district offices and vote totals and text for all district ballot measures. Ballot measures for all jurisdictions are coded according to type (e.g., charter amendment, taxes, bond measure, initiative, etc.) and to topic (e.g., education, public safety, governance, etc.). Election data and reports have been archived annually since 1995.

FACT-CHECKING RESOURCES

  • AllSides -- provides access to the day’s top news stories from along the Left, Center, and Right political spectrum in a side-by-side format that helps you to compare and contrast specific issues or events. The organization also provides Media Bias Ratings for over 1,400 media outlets and writers.
  • Annenberg Political Fact Check -- a resource designed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center that monitors the factual accuracy of politicians’ TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases based on the site’s “Truth-o-Meter” tool.” Contents are updated even when it is not a presidential election year. The site also includes information on special interest groups that support television advertisements.
  • Media Bias/Fact Check -- an independent online media outlet that evaluates the truthfulness and bias of various news sources from all points on the political spectrum.
  • NewsGuard -- uses trained journalists and experienced editors to rate and review thousands of news and information websites based on nine journalistic criteria. The criteria assess basic practices of credibility and transparency. NewsGuard is also available as a browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge as well as a mobile app from GooglePlay and Apple Store.
  • Politifact -- a Pulitzer Prize-winning website created by the Tampa Bay Times that rates the accuracy of claims made by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics.
  • Snopes — a fact-checking website, dating back to the 1990s, that specializes in debunking urban legends, rumors, memes, and tweets, as well as fact-checking news stories.
  • Tineye -- a reverse image search engine that allows you to see where an image has been published online. The database can be used to determine whether an image is old or shared out of context and how it differs from the original, including what has been cropped, removed, or edited.

PODCASTS

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.