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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.

Introduction

Resources on this page are intended to introduce you to the key resources for conducting research in comparative politics. For more resources that support the study of comparative political affairs, review the resources described in the International Relations Research Guide.

Resource Guides and Directories

Listed below are directories and resource guides of website that provide politics-related information in countries throughout the world.

  • Constitute -- offers access to the world’s constitutions so that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics. The site includes the currently-in-force constitution for nearly every independent state in the world, as well as some draft and historical texts with a search engine that facilitates finding relevant excerpts on a particular subject. Filtered searching can be used to view results for a specific region or time period or to explore draft or historical texts. All URLs are deep links, meaning you can link to a particular topic search, constitutional comparison, or a specific constitutional provision directly.
  • Environmental Law Net -- this site provides federal, state, international, transnational, and tribal laws and regulations; decisions of U.S. federal and state courts, international courts, courts of countries around the world, and tribal courts; and links to essential guidance documents, policies, and databases from U.S. federal and state agencies, and agencies of governments around the world.
  • Features of Parliamentary Websites -- a comprehensive directory of the world’s legislative websites resources from the Library of Congress.
  • Legislationline --  a free-of-charge online legislative database that provides direct access to international norms and standards relating to specific human dimension issues as well as to domestic legislation and other documents of relevance to these issues. These data and other information available from the site is the most comprehensive resource on legislation related to issues such as human trafficking, gender equality, elections, migration, counter-terrorism, freedom of assembly, and citizenship across the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) region. Also included is a link to the criminal codes of member nations. 
  • Luxembourg Income Study -- a cross-national Data Archive and a  Research Institute that contains two primary databases. The  LIS Database includes income microdata from a large number of countries at multiple points in time. The newer  LWS Database includes wealth microdata from a smaller selection of countries. Both databases include labor market and demographic data as well. Registered users may access the microdata for social scientific research using a remote-access system. All visitors to the website may download the  LIS Key Figures, which provide country-level poverty and inequality indicators.
  • Women in Politics Bibliographic Database -- provides access to books and articles produced throughout the world on the subject of women in politics. The database covers titles representing international, regional, country-by-country as well as thematic perspectives. Site also includes a lists of useful links on this subject.
  • World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples -- this online directory of minorities and indigenous peoples has been restructured into database format, updated and expanded, and the entire text is now available free of charge for the use of all those throughout the world with an interest in any aspect of minorities and indigenous peoples, their rights, their historical, political or geographical context.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

Resources Guides and Databases

Listed below are scholarly databases and research resources that cover international political affairs and will help you find information about specific countries.

NEWSPAPERS AND POPULAR MEDIA

  • Access World News -- comprehensive news collection for exploring issues and events at the local, regional, national and international level. Source types include print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos.
  • ABYZ News Links -- a directory of links to online news sources from around the world with contents organized on a geographical basis. The directory contains links to newspapers and other sites with news content such as broadcast stations, internet services, magazines, and press agencies.

DATABASES

  • AccessUN -- indexes the majority of United Nations documents and publications. Articles appearing in UN periodicals are individually indexed as well as bilateral and multilateral treaties in the UN Treaty Series.
  • Europa: Gateway to the European Union -- provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion, access the websites of each of the EU institutions, and find out about the policies administered by the European Union under the powers devolved to it by the Treaties.
  • IREON [International Relations and Area Studies Gateway] -- a database produced by research organizations, libraries, and documentation centers from various European countries that enables searching for journals, collected essays, conference and research papers, official publications, books, and international treaties in the areas of foreign and security policy, international cooperation and development, international economics, European and transatlantic issues, and foreign cultural policy.
  • OECDiLibrary -- this is the full-text publications portal of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As well as collecting comparable statistics and economic and social data, OECD monitors trends, analyzes and forecasts economic developments and researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and more.
  • United Nations iLibrary -- provides a single digital destination for accessing research reports, journals, data, and publication series distributed by the United Nations Secretariat and its funds and programs.
  • 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.

COUNTRY INFORMATION

  • BBC Country Profiles -- a comprehensive guide to history, politics, and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. Also included are audio and video clips from BBC archives.
  • CIA World Factbook -- provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.
  • Economist Intelligence Unit [EIU] Country Reports -- a source of business intelligence on political and economic trends in 200 countries from 1996 to the present. An overall profile of each country is provided annually and a current report is produced quarterly. Both include current detailed statistics.
  • Europa World – a meticulously researched resource of political, economic, and statistical information for more than 250 countries and territories, as well as international and regional organizations. Contents include authoritative information on every country, providing context for the world’s major political and economic developments; up-to-date government lists and recent election results for every country in the world; the ability to directly compare national statistics in graph and tabular form; coverage of 2,000 international organizations, commissions, and specialized bodies’ topical essays and commodity overviews for major regions of the world; current and comprehensive statistical and directory data for all countries and territories; impartial coverage of issues of national and regional importance from acknowledged experts; and, a directory of major political figures with biographical information and facts. An excellent source of current information about specific countries and regions of the world.

U.S. Department of State Country Reports

  • Human Rights Practices -- annual reports to Congress on the status of internationally recognized human rights practices per country. Online archive from 1999-present.
  • Religious Freedom -- describes the status of religious freedom in each foreign country, government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations, and individuals, and U.S. policies to promote religious freedom around the world. Online archive from 1999-present.
  • Terrorism -- reports on where terrorist acts have occurred, state sponsorship of terrorism and assessments of terrorist groups. Online archive from 1995-present.
  • Trafficking of Persons -- an annually updated, global look at the nature and scope of trafficking in persons and the broad range of government actions to confront and eliminate it. Online archive from 2001-present.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

Regional Databases

Listed below are scholarly databases that provide access to journal articles, research reports, and other literature published by scholars outside of the United States and Canada.

  • African Journals Online -- the world's largest online collection of African-published, peer-reviewed scholarly journals. The site currently hosts over 370 peer-reviewed journals from 27 African countries, many focused on international affairs.
  • Arab World Research Source -- a resource of scholarly journals, quality magazines, trade publications, industry profiles, country reports, market research reports and conference papers related to the Arab World. This resource reaches across all major subject disciplines, including business, economics, science, technology, humanities and sociology. The database contains more than 140 scholarly full text titles, with the majority of the journals featuring Arabic full text.
  • Bibliography of Asian Studies -- contains over 740,000 records on all subjects, particularly in the humanities and the social sciences, pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present.
  • Caribbean Search -- a multidisciplinary database that provides a comprehensive guide to English-language articles pertinent to the countries and people of the Caribbean region. The collection contains over 730 Caribbean-focused scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, reports and reference books.
  • China Academic Journals -- full-text articles from 1208 Chinese journal titles (a limited number in English) in the areas of economics, politics, law and related disciplines dating from 1994 to the present. Retrospective articles, dating back to 1915, are included for 27 journal titles.
  • Hispanic American Periodicals Index -- source for authoritative, worldwide information about current political, economic, and social issues concerning Central and South America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. Includes sources in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
  • Index Islamicus -- indexes literature on Islam, the Middle East, and the Muslim world. Records in the database cover almost 100 years of publications and include not only works written about the Middle East, but also about the other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere.
  • MideastWire.com -- an Internet-based service of translated news briefs covering key political, cultural, economic, and opinion pieces appearing in the Arab media.
  • Political Database of the Americas -- offers information about institutions and political processes, national constitutions, branches of government, elections, political constitutional studies and other subjects related to democracy in the Americas.
  • World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean -- brings together primary source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean; academic journals and news-feeds covering the region; reference articles and commentary; maps and statistics; and audio and video. World Scholar covers topics such as politics, economics, religion, culture, international affairs, the environment, science, and technology.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

International Statistics

Listed below are sources of international statistics that can used to quantifiably analyze and compare two or more variables.

  • EuroStat -- the statistical office of the European Union and provides statistics at European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions.
  • Human Development Data -- human development data utilized in the preparation of the Human Development Index (HDI) and other composite indices featured in the Human Development Report are provided by a variety of public international sources.
  • International Monetary Fund [IMF] eLibrary -- includes access to the following statistical databases:
  • MacroDataGuide -- this is a compilation of data sources that include general databases containing social and economic data, large, general datasets with a number of political variables, indicators and indices produced by non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, and datasets compiled by independent researchers. The information provided in this site is collected from the various institutions’ and research projects’ websites. Excellent place to begin looking for international social science data.
  • OECDiLibrary -- this is the full-text publications portal of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and includes comparable statistics and economic and social data. The OECD monitors trends, analyzes and forecasts economic developments and researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and more.
  • UNdata -- database facilitates searching and downloading of official statistics produced by countries and compiled by United Nations data system, including estimates and projection, and a variety of statistical resources from the UN system. The domains covered are agriculture, crime, education, energy, industry, labor, national accounts, population and tourism.
  • World Development Indicators [WDI] -- contains statistical data for over 550 development indicators and time series data from 1960 to the present for over 200 countries and 18 country groups.
  • Worldwide Governance Indicators [WGI] -- reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 212 countries and territories over the period 1996–2006, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law , and Control of Corruption.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

MEASUREMENT INDEXES AND DATA SETS

Corruption

Democratic Governance

Property

Social Justice and Well-Being

Welfare