Research Guides: Political Science: Web Links

About this page

For a decidedly more far-reaching index of political science websites, see Ipsaportal.net, the official portal of the International Political Science Association, which lists and reviews over 300 "useful, rich, and qualitatively outstanding websites for political science." For web links that take up more specific topics, please see if your course has its own LibGuide under the PLSC course guides page, above.

Utilizing the Internet for research is an increasingly accepted practice that can be a boon, but researchers must still be wary. For important guidelines about using the Internet in doing research, please read the "Guidelines for doing research with free Web sources" section in the Citations and guidelines page, above. For information about using primary sources you find online, see the ALA Reference and User Services Association's Using Primary Sources on the Web.

American Politics

American National Election Studies
"The American National Election Studies (ANES) produces high quality data on voting, public opinion, and political participation to serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists who want to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes."
British Pathé Film Archives
"The world's finest digital news archive, with over 90,000 clips from 1897-1970 (footage from 1894-1977)." A fabulous and extraordinarily comprehensive resource for newsreel footage of worldwide events in the twentieth century.
Census Bureau Homepage
The place to go for official statistics related to the population of the U.S.
Federal Election Commission
The official website of the FEC, with statistical information about campaign financing.
FRONTLINE: Government/Elections (PBS)
An index of documentaries that take up American government and the electoral process as part of PBS's award-winning FRONTLINE series. Most of the documentaries can be viewed online from this link.
govinfo
govinfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics)
A service of the Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org is touted as "the most comprehensive resource for campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere."
Political Advocacy
A directory of United States lobbying organizations organized by issue.
Presidents of the United States (Internet Public Library)
A bare bones site with election results, contextual information, and biographical notes about each of the presidents.
Project Vote Smart
Project Vote Smart is a non-profit organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office. Their website includes biographies, voting records, issue positions, and public statements, among other statistics and information.
The National Security Archive (George Washingon University)
An independent nonprofit research institute and library serving as a clearinghouse of declassified U.S. documents.
USA.gov: Data and Statistics about the U.S.
Find data about the U.S., such as maps and population, demographic, and economic data.
USA.gov: The U.S. Government's Official Web Portal
The official U.S. gateway to all government information, with links to agencies and information arranged by topic.

International Relations & Comparative Politics

Al Jazeera English
The online component of the Middle East's premier newspaper; supporters suggest that news reports are often less "scrubbed" than Western news sources.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International's official website, with news, updates, and human rights information organized by country and topic.
British Pathé Film Archives
"The world's finest digital news archive, with over 90,000 clips from 1897-1970 (footage from 1894-1977)." A fabulous and extraordinarily comprehensive resource for newsreel footage of events in the twentieth century.
CIFP - Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (Carleton University)
The CIFP site comprises an open-access "database [that] provides at-a-glance global overviews, issue-based perspectives and country performance measures ... [and] a large list of related research links ... covering worldwide institutions, universities and centers devoted to specific topics, from Conflict Analysis to International Development" (IPSA portal description).
Country profiles (BBC News)
"Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives."
Country Studies (Federal Research Division, Library of Congress)
"Contains the online versions of books previously published (1988-98) 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 the 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."
Election Guide (International Foundation for Electoral Systems)
"ElectionGuide provides timely and accurate information on: National elections around the world, and other electoral events deemed of high interest; Political parties and candidates; Referenda provisions; Breaking news on election-related laws and political developments around the world; Governmental and electoral structures; Election results and voter turnout."
FRONTLINE: Foreign affairs/defense (PBS)
An index of documentaries that take up foreign affairs and defense as part of PBS's award-winning FRONTLINE series. Most of the documentaries can be viewed online from this link.
Open Democracy (UK)
An educational non-profit organization that indexes articles, blogs, forums, podcasts on global current affairs.
World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
"The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities."
WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resoruces (Wayne A. Selcher, Elizabethtown College)
"An Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in a wide range of international affairs, international studies, and international relations topics."

Public Administration and Law

American Civil Liberties Union
The official website of the ACLU, useful pages for students of political science include the Supreme Court watch and Legislative Update.
A Century of Lawmaking (Library of Congress)
Comprises more than 500,000 digital items, including page images and searchable text. "The journals, debates, and legislation of the federal congresses from 1789 to 1873 form the core of the collection."
US Constitution
"This database offers constitutions, charters, amendments, and other related documents. Nations of the world are linked to their constitutional text posted somewhere on the Internet."
Law & Politics Book Review (University of Maryland)
"Sponsored by the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association. Reviews are published frequently ... The electronic medium enables us to review almost every book about the legal process and politics, to do longer reviews than are usually published, and to make the reviews available within six months of our receipt of the book."
The Oyez Project
"The Oyez Project is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. The Project also provides authoritative information on all justices and offers a virtual reality 'tour' of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices."
Policy Archive (Center for Governmental Studies)
"PolicyArchive is a comprehensive digital library of public policy research containing over 30,000 documents." The site is free, but you'll have to register with a valid e-mail address to gain access.
United States Courts (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts)
"[M]aintained by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on behalf of the Federal Judiciary. The purpose of this site is to provide information from and about the Judicial Branch of the U.S. Government."