Subject Specialist:
Law, Political Science, International Affairs
814-863-1347
e-mail: hms2@psu.edu
Helen Sheehy
Title: Head Social Sciences Library
Subject Specialist:
Law, Political Science, International Affairs
814-863-1347
e-mail: hms2@psu.edu
There are many ways to find information on the government, political climate, current events, and data sources for countries around the world. Some reliable sources are available on the internet, but many are available through the University Libraries databases and print resources.
The following guide will help you get started identifying useful information sources — both freely available and those purchased by the Libraries for your use.
Note: [Penn State Libraries] indicates a Libraries' resource available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account
These sources will give you a general overview of the government structure, parliamentary makeup, and political climate in your countries. They often include some basic statistics on the countries.
Political Handbook of the World
Overview of the political system and situation in countries around the world.
Europa World Yearbook
Snapshots of the political, economic, and social conditions of countries worldwide.
World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
Explanation of executive, legislative, and judicial systems, political parties, and electoral systems around the world.
World Encyclopedia of Parliaments and Legislatures
Country-by-country analysis of politics, parties, elections, and parliaments around the world.
The Encyclopedia of Democracy
Articles on the concepts of democracy, important figures, and country and regional assessments of the state of democracy in the world.
Encyclopedia of World Political Systems
A country-by-country survey of the political environment of a country and how that has effected governments.
Encyclopedia of Nationalism
How nationalist movements have played a role in the political environment, with many entries for specific countries.
International Encyclopedia of Elections
Everything you ever wanted to know about the forms of elections and election processes.
Political Risk Yearbook [Penn State Libraries]
An analysis of the business and political climate of various countries. Designed primarily for use by business people, the analyses can be useful in identifying trends in politics and economics. Coverage is for selected countries only.
Library of Congress: Country Studies Series and Country Profiles
Present descriptions and analyses of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world.
Country Background Notes
prepared by the U.S. State Department, these publications provide information about facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of countries.
CIA World FactBook
The FactBook contains very brief current info, including a few basic statistics, about countries of the world.
Parline
From the Inter-Parliamentary Union, this database provides a description of the parliaments of the world, including recent election statistics.
These contain data sets that can be downloaded for later manipulation. When determining what the data set can be used for, look for codebooks or data definitions that describe what the data means.
Armed Conflict Database [Penn State Libraries]
Covers international and internal conflicts, as well as terrorism. It provides an interactive source of information on 70 armed conflicts including terrorism, refugees, and returnees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), weapons used and their flows, fatalities, costs (U.S. dollars), historical backgrounds, annual updates and timelines. Users can generate reports and download data as well as browse through year-by-year analyses and fact sheets online.
World Development Indicators [Penn State Libraries]
World Development Indicators includes nearly 800 statistical indicators related to social and economic development. It is organized into six sections: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. The tables cover 152 economies and 14 country groups — with basic indicators for a further 55 economies. Data can be downloaded for further manipulation.
United Nations Common Database (UNCDB) [Penn State Libraries]
The most broad-based of the statistical resources, it draws data from a wide variety of UN and UN-related (e.g., FAO, ILO, WHO) organizations.
International Financial Statistics (IFS) Online [Penn State Libraries]
IFS Online is the principal statistical publication of the International Monetary Fund. Tables for each Fund member country include data on the country's exchange rates, Fund position, international liquidity, money and banking accounts, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, national accounts, and population. Selected series are published in area and world tables. Data may be downloaded as HTML, Excel, comma-delimited, or tab-delimited files. Some series begin with 1945. Updated monthly.
OECD iLibrary [Penn State Libraries]
Full-text book and serial publications from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD iLibrary Statistics page includes many of the data sets available from the organization.
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) [Penn State Libraries]
ICPSR is a data archives with both for U.S. and international data. Both data and codebooks to interpret the data are available online to Penn State faculty, staff, and students. You will be asked to register before you use the system.
Journal articles can help you understand your country and its political environment, as well as help you formulate good research questions and research methodologies.
The most important database for political science is Worldwide Political Science Abstracts [Penn State Libraries]. The database contains some full text and will link you to additional full-text resources from other databases owned by the Libraries.
