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Political Science Research Sources
Prepared to assist students of
Mary Baldwin College, Staunton VA 24401
Use this page to access quality research tools, including:
News sources:
- Al
Jazeera
(Qatar). English language version of Middle East's most
influential independent news source.
- British Broadcast
Corporation, BBC, offers daily news as text, video and in 43 languages.
- Christian Science
Monitor
is the free daily online edition of the respected newspaper;
web archives are searchable from 1980 onward, but require paying a fee
to read the articles found.
- CNN World
News
presents print and audio versions of up-to-the-minute news stories
on all major world regions, and on U.S. foreign policy.
- Economist Online
contains the full text of the influential British news weekly. Excellent
coverage of British politics and world affairs; searchable archives of
articles from 1995 onward.
- Euro News
service
contains text and video news from the European continent; covers the whole
world.
- I.T.N., independent
television news service, from London U.K.
- Jerusalem
Post: extensive news and editorial
commentary from Israel.
- Lexis-Nexis,
entered through MBC's Grafton Library, allows access for MBC students (only;
ID number required) to hundreds of U.S. and international newspapers and
more.
- Los Angeles Times
provides national, international and California news from America's second
largest city. News stories within two weeks are free; older archived
articles require paying a fee.
- New York Times
Full text of the most current issue of the paper is presented, but the
site requires users to register to access the archives.
- PBS Newshour
provides transcripts of its recent television broadcasts, and searchable
archives of past programs.
- Time Magazine
Daily
is a continuously updated version of the popular news weekly.
Includes searchable archives of the U.S. edition (since 1994), and of the
international edition (since 1995).
- US News
and World Report Daily also offers the views of this national
newsmagazine in an online form. Searchable archives permit searches
from 1997 to the present.
- Washington
Post is the Online version of the daily paper. The website
supports searches of the archives back to 1977. Readers may read
for free, but must pay a fee to download whole articles older than two
weeks.
Specialized Tools for Studying
U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign policy:
- Brookings Institution
online books provides full text versions of recent books from this respected
Washington DC think tank. Useful for research into U.S. defense
policy and U.S. international
and foreign policy.
- C.I.A
Factbook of the Countries of the World.
- Department
of State Research Reports offers links to treaties, human rights reports,
biographies of personnel and much more related to U.S. foreign policy. This is
an archive site, 1993-97; another official archive for materials
to January 2001 is here. Consult the current
Department of State website for materials since that date.
- Rand Corporation Studies
on Terrorism. Most were written on U.S. Government contract basis.
- The Federation
of American Scientists, offers separate web resources on U.S. Arms
Sales, the U.S. Intelligence Community, Government Secrecy, and many other
projects; searchable archives start in 1990.
- National
Vital Statistics Reports
from the U.S. Federal Government's Center for
Disease Control (C.D.C.).
- Census
Bureau Factfinder: rapidly learn about basic
demographic, income, housing characteristics, and other facts on any state,
city, town, county, zip code, or the entire USA.
- Roll Call
provides
detailed information on current legislation and events in the U.S. House
of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Editorial commentaries by
noted experts also are included.
- Uses
of U.S. Armed Forces Abroad, is a full text study done by Congressional
Reference Service which enumerates and briefly details 234 uses of U.S.
military forces abroad, 1798-1993. Links lead to vast resources
on historic conflicts involving the U.S. Navy at the Naval
Historical Center.
- Information on State
Governments from the 50 states. Also, a Virginia General
Assembly website posts pending legislation and other information useful
in studying Virginia politics.
Journals of Opinion:
Public Opinion Research Tools:
- Gallup Poll
provides
polls of Americans' views, and provides selected foreign nations' polls.
-
Lexis-Nexis,
entered through MBC's Grafton Library Journals Database, allows access for MBC students
only (ID number required). To view hundreds of public opinion polls, go
to Lexis-Nexis, then to "reference," then to "polls and surveys."
- PIPA, the
Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland
issues numerous useful studies on Americans' views of world problems.
- The
PEW Center for the People and the Press.
Provides extensive original polls and analysis thereof; both U.S. publics
and foreign publics are surveyed.
- Roper Center
provides
additional current polls and archives which are searchable back a half
century and more.
Research Tools for studying
Comparative Politics,Third World Politics, and International Relations:
Resources
on human rights conditions:
- Amnesty
International publishes
annual reports on human rights conditions in
all major and minor world states; full text of all reports, 1993 onward,
are available. Also gives access to A.I.'s
library of special reports and Urgent Action notices, organized by
country and archived back to 1996.
- Freedom House
publishes annual assessments of the condition
of democratic freedoms in all major and minor world states, as well as
other irregularly issued studies on specific states, religious freedoms,
etc. Yearly reports cover:
-
Freedom
in the World 2009.
Surveys each of 192 world states in terms of political rights and civil
liberties. Provides links to "Freedom in the World"
reports for each year since 1999.
-
Freedom of the
Press 2009 (and earlier years). Contains
introductory essays on selected topics and country-by-country ratings
for world states in 2004.
-
Nations in Transit 2008 (and earlier years). Focuses
on the 27 former communist states of East Central Europe and the former
USSR. Back issues from 1998 onward also are linked.
-
United
States Department of State: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
Issued annually in February-March for the preceding year. Archive of
1999 onward is at this
address. To access earlier reports from 1993 through 1999,
go
here.
Other Resources on International
Problems:
- Bertelsmann
Stiftung Transformation Index: Yearly comparative rankings of world
states regarding political freedoms and economic performance indicators from
authoritative German think tank; also provides country
reports on many nations.
- International
Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.)
monitors and reports for the U.N. on
compliance of states with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (N.P.T.), which bars non-peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
- The Coalition for an International
Criminal Court, a private NGO, presents information related to the U.N.'s process of
creating a permanent criminal court for war crimes.
- Jane's
from London
offers information and analysis about the military forces of the states
of the world, and other valuable resources useful in assessing states'
power and related issues. Requires subscription to access full text of
some reports.
- Latin
America: Political Database at Georgetown University provides links
to journals, archives and data bases on the Americas. Primary documents
and reference materials are provided. Detailed information by country on
constitutions and legal systems, elections, political parties, civil
society, political institutions and more.
- Latin American Information
Center at University of Texas provides
vast searchable resources on all
countries in the Americas. Documents in English and Spanish, plus some
Portuguese. Links organized by country,
and by topic (e.g., government,
military, human
rights, political
science, media, social
sciences, and much more).
- The Library
of Congress' Country Studies, a collection of analytical portraits
of the world's states, are available here. Inconsistencies in collection
mar its utility: e.g., the Iraq study was done in 1988; the Afghanistan one
was done in 1997).
- National Security
Archive, a private archive at George Washington University, provides declassified secret
documents on U.S. foreign policy, and some analysis
of the documents exhibited.
- North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)
supplies information on the key U.S. alliance,
and on projects such as the SFOR / EUFOR mission in Bosnia
and the KFOR mission in Kosovo.
Searchable.
- Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe
is the official international organization
of nearly all European and former Soviet states. Provides official reports of
observer missions sent to assess electoral processes and many irregularly
issued documents on varied human rights concerns. Most resources available
are full text.
- Radio
Free Europe / Radio Liberty offers daily news coverage of the Balkans,
Central Europe, Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union. Well organized
archives
cover from 1996 to 2008; live
audio news is focused on needs of non-English speakers.
- United Nations Homepage
leads to many interesting sites, including the UNSCOM
project (to 1999) to verify destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
and chronology
of that process. Includes links to U.N. Security Council Resolutions on
Iraq, but only to December 1999.
- War Crimes Tribunal
(I.C.T.Y.): This official site of the U.N.'s International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia chronicles pending and completed trials
for war crimes from the court in The Hague (Netherlands).
-
Warlinks:
A set of links to websites, speeches, specialized news sources, online
studies, and other materials related to the War on Terrorism.
Maintained by MBC's Prof. Bowen.
Political Science Research
Journals
- Foreign Affairs
provides full text of some current and archived articles, summaries of
others. Archive since 1923 accessible from ABI/INFORM
- Foreign Policy
provides abstracts and some full text articles; archives posted since 1997.
Archive since Dec. 1992 accessible from Expanded
Academic Index.
- Governing
is the online, full text version of the journal focused on
state and local government, politics, and administration.
- Political Science
Quarterly
offers a few full text articles and reviews on both American
and comparative / international politics. Archives available: 1886-1999 in
JSTOR;
1993-present in Expanded
Academic Index.
- World
Politics
provides only abstracts of recent articles.
Archives available: 1948-1995 in JSTOR;
1949-present in MBC Library.
Leadership Studies Journals:
Libraries:
Sites for Studying Women
in U.S. Politics:
Sites for Studying U.S.
Public Law and Constitutional Law
Guide to Making Citations to
Print and Web Sources:
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Last Updated on
December 13, 2009
For more information email gbowen@mbc.edu
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