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Political Science Resources

Recommended Resources

In addition to the research resources listed below, Mount Union offers a number of recommended resources that will have additional information in your field of study.

Political Science and International Studies Research Databases

Annual Reviews

Coverage includes biochemistry, genetics, immunology, medicine, neuroscience, nutrition, physiology, public health. Full text from 1996 to the present is available (tables of contents only from 1984 to 1995).

Caribbean Search

Caribbean Search is 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 making this the largest collection of full text content available to academic, school and public libraries in the region. This database is updated weekly.

Central and Eastern European Academic Source

Central & Eastern European Academic Source (CEEAS) provides full text (including PDF) coverage for scholarly journals published in central and eastern European countries. This multidisciplinary, multilingual database offers full text content to many academic.

Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments

CIAO

Columbia International Affairs Online provides access to journals, working papers, economic indicators, policy briefs, books, maps and country data.

Congressional Research Service Reports (University of North Texas)

CRS is the public policy research arm of Congress. These reports provide history, policy, and law pertaining to topics of public and political interest.

Constitute! The World’s Constitutions to Read, Search, and Compare

This database contains constitutions from around the world.

Country Watch

CountryWatch covers demographic, political, economic, business, cultural and environmental subject matter.  Key publications produced by CountryWatch include the CountryReviews TM, an up-to-date series of publications for each country including demographic, political, economic, business, cultural and environmental information, and the CountryWireTM ,which provides daily news coverage for every country in the world and a significant news archive made up of the compendium of regional news carriers.

Environment Complete

Environment Complete contains more than 2.4 million records from more than 2,200 domestic and international titles going back to 1888 (including over 1,350 active core titles) as well as more than 190 monographs. The database also contains full text for more than 920 journals.

GovInfo

This is an excellent resource that includes information on individual publications or collections of content, or view an alphabetical list of collections, publications, other resources, and external partner sites. This site provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. This online collection is replacing many of the paper resources formally housed in the library government document area.

Homeland Security Digital Library

The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation’s premier collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and organizational management. The HSDL is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

ICPSR: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research

An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.

International Political Science Abstracts

International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA), produced by the International Political Science Association, includes current indexing and abstracts of the world's leading journals in political science. This database contains over 282,000 records from over 1,000 journals published from 1951 to the present. 45,000 of the records are provided via a digitized backfile to Volume One of the print index. Approximately 8,000 new records are added to the database each year.

International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center

This database offers information on virtually every dimension of security & counter-terrorism and is designed to inform the analysis process, as well as enhance the general understanding of security and terrorism-related issues. ISCTRC provides a comprehensive Open Source Intelligence Resource for analysts, risk management professionals, and students. Content includes hundreds of full text journals and periodicals, hundreds of thousands of selected articles, news feeds.

Legal Collection

This database contains full text for more than 250 of the world's most respected, scholarly law journals. Legal Collection is an authoritative source for information on current issues, studies, thoughts and trends of the legal world.

Legislative Sourcebook

This resource is provided by the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, DC.

Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies

Middle Eastern & Central Asian Studies, produced by NISC, is a systematic and non-evaluative bibliographic index of research, policy and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa . This database contains more than 639,000 records and coverage spans from 1900 and earlier to present.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context

Opposing Viewpoints is the premier online resource covering today's hottest social issues, from capital punishment to immigration to marijuana. This cross-curricular research database supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes. Informed, differing views help learners develop critical-thinking skills and draw their own conclusions.

It contains a rich resource for debaters and includes pro/con viewpoints, reference articles, interactive maps, infographics, and more. A category on the National Debate Topic provides quick and easy access to content on frequently studied and discussed issues. Periodical content covers current events, news and commentary, economics, environmental issues, political science, and more.

Peace Research Abstracts

Peace Research Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. The index contains more than 267,000 records, which are carefully selected from the most important sources within the discipline.

Political Science Complete

Designed specifically for students, researchers and government institutions, this full-text database covers political topics with a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.

Points of View Reference Center

Containing resources that present multiple sides of an issue, this database provides rich content that can help students assess and develop persuasive arguments and essays, better understand controversial issues and develop analytical thinking skills.

Public Affairs Index

This bibliographic database covers all aspects of national and global contemporary public policy issues. This includes public health, the environment, housing, human and civil rights and international commerce. 

Quick Links and Sources to U.S. Court Opinions

This resource is provided by the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, DC.

Roper Center, The

Data from surveys of public opinion are available. Data range from the 1930s to the present. Most of the data are from the United States, but over 50 nations are represented.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

This resource includes:

  • Section 1- Characteristics of the criminal justice systems
  • Section 2- Public attitudes toward crime and criminal justice-related topics
  • Section 3- Nature and distribution of known offenses
  • Section 4- Characteristics and distribution of persons arrested
  • Section 5- Judicial processing of defendants
  • Section 6- Persons under correctional supervision

Sage Stats

SAGE Stats makes research easy by providing, in one place, annual measures dating back more than two decades. It features statistical data series created from more than 400,000 government and non-government datasets, covering popular topics of research interest for U.S. states, counties, cities, metropolitan areas, and ZIP codes. By harmonizing carefully-vetted data from multiple sources into the same format– allowing quick downloads, comparisons, and visualizations–SAGE Stats provides power and context for researchers at all levels.


Science Reference Center

Designed to meet every student researcher's needs, Science Reference Center contains full text for hundreds of science magazines, journals, encyclopedias, reference books and a vast collection of images. 

Statistical Abstract of the U.S.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States has been published since 1878. It is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.

Thomas Reuters Westlaw Campus Research

This is a premier research service for legal, news, and business-related information. Access to Ohio Jurisprudence is available by navigating to the tab for “State Materials,” then clicking on “Ohio, then look for “Secondary Sources.”

Treaty Documents

U.S. Department of State Archive

This resource is a permanent electronic archive of information published by the State Department from 1997-2009. It includes links to State Department Magazine, policies, services, etc.

U.S. Judiciary Branch Resources

Federal Judicial Center's

This is the Federal Judicial Center's website. It offers information about the judicial branch of the United States government and includes research about court related topics, education about the federal court system, and the history of the Federal Judiciary.

United States Courts

This site offers quick links to resources about jury selection, bankruptcy, forms, policies, court records, statistics and educational resources.

U.S. Court Opinions

This resource is provided by the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, DC.

U.S. Supreme Court

This website contains opinions, case citation finder, filings and rules, oral arguments, case documents and news media.

U.S. Department of Justice

This includes court cases, briefs, opinions and press releases.

U.S. Legislative Branch/U.S. Congress Resources

A Century of Lawmaking

Congressional documents from the first 100 years of the U.S. Congress (1774-1875).

Code of Federal Regulations

Committees of the U.S. Congress 

This site provides a directory of committees active in the current congress. House and Senate committee names from that directory link to committee profiles that facilitate access to business conducted and documents produced by House and Senate committees. Each profile features an interactive list of legislation and reports, and general information by and about a committee.

Congress.gov

This is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service. Congress.gov supersedes the THOMAS system which was retired on July 5, 2016. 

Congress.gov is usually updated the morning after a session adjourns.

Resources within this site include:

Law Library of Congress

The Law Library of Congress has approximately 2.65 million volumes. The Law Library’s collection of primary and secondary sources constitutes the largest legal collection in the world.

The Guide to Law Online

This is prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information. It contains links to International and Multinational law, Nations of the World, U.S. Federal Code, U.S. States and Territories, and more.

United States Courts, from the Federal Judiciary

This site offers quick links to resources about jury selection, bankruptcy, forms, policies, court records, statistics and educational resources.

U.S. Political Stats (Sage)

You will need to verify this through OhioLINK with your Mount Union email and your Purple Plus Card. U.S. Political Stats is a data download and visualization tool that aids researchers in finding and understanding data on the three branches of the United States Government (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial). Designed to be intuitive for the novice researcher yet robust enough for senior political scientists, the site allows users to create graphs, charts, and maps to allow for a quick analysis of data trends. It’s the only site that contains the highly valued CQ Roll Call and CQ Press content which can be compared with other public and proprietary data.

WhiteHouse.gov

This includes information about news concerning the president of the United States and the White House, issues of national security, budget, immigration, and healthcare. It also provides historical information about the White House, the administration, and the different executive offices of the U.S. Government.

White House Briefing Room 
This resource provides many presidential statements, speeches and proclamations. Especially good for very current items. Links to Executive Orders, consecutively numbered official documents through which the President of the United States manages the operations of the Federal Government.