Political Science


Selected Purdue Libraries Databases for Political Science

  • AccessUN: Provides access to United Nations publications from agencies such as the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, and Security Council.
  • America: History and Life: Abstracts of selected journal articles, citations of book and media reviews, and dissertations covering the history of what is now the United States and Canada for all time periods. Covers over 2,000 journals published worldwide. All abstracts are in English. Every year about 16,000 new entries are added. Includes some 6,000 citations of book and media reviews.
  • Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS): This database references western-language journal articles, book chapters, and monographs on all subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present.
  • CQ Public Affairs Collection: Organized by over twenty broad subjects in the fields of public policy and public affairs, this full-text collection provides selected resources for each subject, including reports, historic documents, legislation, court case summaries, statistical analyses, chronologies, organizations, web sites, and more.
  • Environmental Policy Index: This database provides researchers with abstracts and indexes for over 1,000 titles, 500 currently, covering environmental issues and policies. The database covers in depth applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, environmental law, geography, marine and freshwater resources, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more. An environment thesaurus and publication index provide for more precise searching. Online coverage extends back to 1973.
  • GPO Access: Authorized by Public Law 103-40, GPO Access contains the full text of major U.S. Government legal, legislative, and regulatory information sources such as the United States Code, congressional bills, committee reports on legislation, bill status information, the Congressional Record, General Accounting Office reports the Code of Federal Regulations, and the Federal Register.
  • GPO Index: Government Printing Office (GPO) is an index to U.S. congressional, judicial and executive information from 1976 to present available for distribution to federal depository libraries such as Purdue..
  • Historical Abstracts: Abstracts of selected journal articles, citations of books, book reviews and dissertations on the history of all parts of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to present. Published since 1954, Historical Abstracts currently covers over 2,000 journals published throughout the world. Besides article citations, each year it adds approximately 3,000 book citations, for a total of over 20,000 entries added each year.
  • Indiana Administrative Code: Contains the text of regulations Indiana state agencies use to enforce laws passed by the Indiana General Assembly and signed by the Governor.
  • LexisNexis Academic: Provides full text access to federal and state court cases and laws, European Union law, patents, tax law, law review articles, newspaper articles, and additional reference information. Includes U.S. Supreme Court and federal court opinions from 1789 to present.
  • LexisNexis Statistical: Provides indexing, abstracting, and links to selected full-text coverage of statistical publications produced by the U.S. government, state governments, international government organizations, and selected private organizations.
  • Matter of Fact: This database contains statements from speeches and written works which include statistical information on current social, economic, political, health, environmental, and public policy.
  • OmniFile Full Text Mega: (Combines Social Sciences Abstracts and Humanities Abstracts with other databases) This database provides cover-to-cover indexing for 492 key international English language periodicals in the Social Sciences and 500 English language periodicals in the Humanities. Material include articles, review articles, scholarly replies to the literature, interviews, obituaries, and biographies in the fields of anthropology, economics, geography, international relations, political science, psychology, sociology, archaeology and classical studies, art and photography, folklore, history, journalism and communications, language and literature, literary and political criticism, music and performing arts, philosophy, and religion and theology. It is updated weekly with coverage from 1983 to the present. Abstracting begins with material in 1994.
  • PAIS International: This database is a bibliographic index with abstracts covering the full range of political, social, and public policy issues, such as economic, political, and social issues, business, finance, law, international trade and relations, public administration, government, and any topics that are or might become the subject of legislation.. The database covers selected journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, and government documents. Coverage includes documents published worldwide in any of six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
  • Social Sciences Citation Index: This is a multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes 1,700 journals spanning 50 disciplines, and is searchable by keyword, author, journal title, and by date. An added feature is searching for citations to individual authors and/or publications. This database indexes a representative selection of non-English language journals.
  • Source OECD: Compilation of statistics and reports from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD)
  • United Nations Statistical Yearbook: The database contains international stats compiled yearly by the UN. Topics include agriculture, education, finance, manufacturing, social statistics, and trade.
  • U.S. Law Week: Weekly coverage of the most significant cases and key legislative, regulatory, and pre-decisional developments, across the country, across all areas of the law.
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: Up-to-date indexing, abstracts, and research links in political science and related fields, including international relations, law, sociology, economics, and public administration/policy. Has the backfiles from 1975 onward from two major research databases that have ceased: Political Science Abstracts and ABC POL SCI. Monitors 1,235 titles for relevant items, including materials in 34 languages.

Scholarly Societies and Associations

Selected Free Internet Indexes, Databases & Data Set Archives

  • 2008 Elections: Provides links to presidential campaign websites and other political campaign material from government and other websites.
  • American Presidency Project: This University of California-Santa Barbara resource provides detailed documentary information about the U.S. presidency.
  • Avalon Project: The Yale Law School. This site is dedicated to providing access via the World Wide Web to primary source materials in the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
  • American Rhetoric contains three datatbases. The Online Speech Bank is a database containing over 5000 full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recordings.
  • Cases & Materials on American Federalism, Online Edition: Developed by Douglas G. Amber of Purdue University, Calumet and organized for a specific course. Thus, it is a well organized collection of court cases and documents concerning American Federalism.
  • Chronology of US Historical Documents: University of Oklahoma College of Law. This site is a full text database beginning with the Magna Carta and contains treaties, speeches, and other documents.
  • Commission on Presidential Debates: Organization responsible for sponsoring presidential and vice-presidential debates.
  • Country Rankings Guide: American University Libraries resource listing how various interest groups rank countries in subjects like civil liberties, corruption, development, economics, environment, government, and political freedom etc.
  • Country Studies: This site contains on-line versions of books previously published in hard copy by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Army. Because the original intent of the Series' sponsor was to focus primarily on lesser known areas of the world or regions in which U.S. forces might be deployed, the series is not all-inclusive. At present, 101 countries and regions are covered. Notable omissions include Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and other Western nations, as well as a number of African nations.
  • Constitution Finder: The University of Richmond School of Law this site offers constitutions, charters, amendments, and other related documents from different nations of the world.
  • Constitutions: This site maintained by Richard Kimber presents past and present constitutions of various countries.
  • C-SPAN: Cable television network providing webcasts of various governmental and public policy events including congressional committee hearings.
  • Federalist Papers: Full-text and indexed. The Federalist Papers were written and published during the years 1787 and 1788 in several New York State newspapers to persuade New York voters to ratify the proposed constitution. In total, the Federalist Papers consist of 85 essays outlining how this new government would operate and why this type of government was the best choice for the United States of America.
  • Foreign and International Government Statistical Agencies
  • Historical Documents: The Library of Congress. This site contains full text searchable early Congressional documents.
  • Indiana State Statistical Agencies
  • Non-Governmental Organizations: Links to search engines providing access to resources produced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NEW
  • Policy Archive: Global database of nonpartisan public policy research reports. (NEW)
  • Political Advocacy Groups: A Directory of United States Lobbyists: Provides access to political interest group websites arranged by subject. (NEW)
  • Presidential Libraries & Records : Provides links to presidential libraries administered by the National Archives & other organizations.
  • Research Centers: Provides access to U.S. and foreign think tanks representing numerous public policy issues and perspectives on these issues.
  • State Constitutions and Statutes, etc: This page seeks to link to sites containing full-text state constitutions, statutes (called codes or compiled laws in some states), legislation (bills, amendments and similar documents), session laws (bills that have become laws), and administrative rules.
  • U.S. Government Statistical Agency Websites: A listing of several U.S. Government statistical agencies.

Research Guides to Government Resources

State, Local and Federal Government Links
  • Indiana Local Government
  • Indiana State Government
  • GPO Access: A service of the U.S. Government Printing Office that provides free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. The information provided on this site is the official, published version and the information retrieved from GPO Access can be used without restriction, unless specifically noted. This free service is funded by the Federal Depository Library Program and has grown out of Public Law 103-40, known as the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Enhancement Act of 1993.
  • Official Executive Branch Web Sites
  • State and Local Governments: Library of Congress.
International Government Links Lists of Links to Other Resources

For more information contact the subject Librarian:
Bert Chapman
Government Information & Political Science Librarian
Associate Professor of Library Science
Phone:  (765) 494-2837 
E-mail:  chapmanb@purdue.edu

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Your librarian is Bert Chapman. Contact him with any questions or requests.

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