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Research Guides

Political Science

POL Course Guides

Welcome!

Use the tabs to find what you need. Make sure to check out the course guides in the Fall and Spring semester tabs at the right.

Country Profiles and Outlooks

  • CIA World Factbook
    US government profiles of countries and territories around the world.
  • EIU Viewpoint (Formerly Economist Intelligence Unit)
    In-depth country analysis and data, including descriptions of the politics, economy, risk, regulation, and business environment of a country. Also includes analysis of global automotive, consumer goods, energy, financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications industries. This service's Data tool can be used to compare economic data across or within countries.
  • Political Risk Yearbook
    Political Risk Yearbook forecasts the risk of doing business in 100 countries. Each includes comments and analysis on recent events, profiles of key political players, and wide-ranging forecast scenarios, as well as basic historical and political background and data on the government, political entities, the environment, and the economy, including key sectors.

Core Article and Report Databases

START HERE if you are beginning your research.

See the Article & Report Databases tab for a comprehensive list.

  • ProQuest Research Library
    ProQuest Research Library provides in-depth coverage of the top 150 core academic subject, including 5,060 titles -over 3,600 in full text- from 1971 forward. It features a highly-respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers.
  • ProQuest Congressional
    Provides indexing and selected full-text access to current and historical legislative information from the United States Congress including hearings, bills, laws, reports and other publications.
  • Public Administration Abstracts
    Includes 60,000 bibliographic records covering areas related to public administration, including public administration theory, and other areas of relevance to the discipline.
  • Academic Search Premier
    Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for nearly 4,500 journals, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles.
  • Columbia International Affairs Online
    Columbia International Affairs Online contains the full-text of working papers, conference proceedings, policy briefs, economic indicators, and other theory and research resources in international affairs.
  • CQ Researcher Plus Archive
    The CQ Researcher explores a single 'hot' issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. 44 reports are produced each year.
  • CQ Weekly
    The CQ Weekly reports on the world's most powerful legislative body completely and accurately every week. Covers virtually every act of Congress, delivering nonpartisan news and analysis unavailable anywhere else. The magazine includes an archive dating back to 1983. Search by topic, page number, committee, "exact phrases or words," bill number, byline or reporter and by Boolean full-text and date searches. Detailed floor votes dating back to August 1983 are easily retrieved.
  • 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. Resources in the Homeland Security Digital Library cover a wide range of homeland security topics and are carefully selected and evaluated by a team of librarians and content specialists.Sources include, but are not limited to: Federal, state and local governments; International governments and institutions; Nonprofit organizations and private sector entities; Think tanks, research centers, colleges and universities.
  • JSTOR
    JSTOR provides digital versions of the backfiles of major scholarly journals. Primarily an archival collection, JSTOR does not provide access to the most recent 3-5 years of content for most titles.
  • Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
    SSRN is an interdisciplinary Open Access database offering abstracts and full articles at various stages of publication, including Preprint, In Review, and completed Peer Review. Create a free account to share your own work, or just browse and download material.
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
    Worldwide Political Science Abstracts indexes journal articles in political science and related areas(international relations, law, public administration, and public policy).

Subject Specialist

  • Adrian Legaspi

    History, Religious Studies, Political Science, International Studies, and Modern Languages & Literatures Librarian

    axl641@miami.edu

    305-284-3257

News and Current Events

  • Global Newsstream (ProQuest)
    Global Newsstream covers national and leading regional newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Barron's, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Washington Post. International coverage includes The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Jerusalem Post, and El Pais.
  • Nexis Uni
    Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
  • Access World News
    Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 1400 U.S. and over 1200 international sources. Each source has its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues.

All Political Science Databases

  • ABI/INFORM Collection
    ABI/INFORM Collection indexes and abstracts articles covering all aspects of business worldwide. The complete article is provided for many titles. The Collection brings together resources appearing in ABI/INFORM Global (business information worldwide), ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry, and ABI/INFORM Dateline (local & regional business information). Previously known as ABI/INFORM Complete.
  • Academic Search Premier
    Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for nearly 4,500 journals, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles.
  • American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies
    Covers journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, online resources, and selected government publications from East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.
  • Bibliography of Asian Studies
    The Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS), references principally western-language articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia and in most disciplines published since 1971.
  • British Library for Development Studies Database (BLDS)
    The BLDS online catalog contains information on monographs and books acquired since 1987; journal articles have been selectively indexed since 1990.
  • CIA World Factbook
    US government profiles of countries and territories around the world.
  • Country Studies
    This collection contains the electronic versions of 80 books previously published in hard copy as part of the Country Studies Series by the Federal Research Division. Intended for a general audience, books in the series present a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of select countries throughout the world. Most books in the series deal with a single foreign country, but a few cover several countries or a geographic region. The series includes several books on countries that no longer exist in their original configuration—such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany, the Soviet Union, Sudan, and Yugoslavia. These books remain in the series because they continue to offer valuable historical information and perspective. In some cases, studies on successor states are also part of the series.
  • CQ Global Researcher
    In-depth coverage of global affairs from a number of international viewpoints.CQ Global Researcher provides researchers with an introductory overview; background and assessment of the current situation; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; chronology on the topic, followed by short features for extensive context; a sampling of related international perspectives; maps and graphs; bibliographies of key sources; next steps for additional reading; and author profiles. Note: The final CQ Global Researcher report was published on November 20, 2012. Archival access will continue on this site, but new reports are no longer being published.
  • CQ Voting & Elections Collection
    Research and reference tool on the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
  • CQ Weekly
    The CQ Weekly reports on the world's most powerful legislative body completely and accurately every week. Covers virtually every act of Congress, delivering nonpartisan news and analysis unavailable anywhere else. The magazine includes an archive dating back to 1983. Search by topic, page number, committee, "exact phrases or words," bill number, byline or reporter and by Boolean full-text and date searches. Detailed floor votes dating back to August 1983 are easily retrieved.
  • Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press Digital Archive from 1949
    The Digital Archive presents a weekly selection of Russian-language press materials, translated into English.
  • Digital National Security Archive
    Collection of significant primary documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945.
  • EIU Viewpoint (Formerly Economist Intelligence Unit)
    In-depth country analysis and data, including descriptions of the politics, economy, risk, regulation, and business environment of a country. Also includes analysis of global automotive, consumer goods, energy, financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications industries. This service's Data tool can be used to compare economic data across or within countries.
  • European Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (EBSEES)
    Contains nearly 85,500 bibliographic citations to scholarly articles, books, etc., relating to Eastern Europe. Covers the years 1991-2006.
  • Government Periodicals Universe
    Government Periodicals Universe indexes the contents of approximately 170 magazines and newsletters published by the U.S. Government with substantial research value.
  • Handbook of Latin America Studies
    The multidisciplinary Handbook, edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, is a bibliography of writings in the social sciences and humanities on Latin America selected and annotated by scholars.Each year, more than 130 academics from around the world choose between 2,000-3,000 works for inclusion in the Handbook. The Handbook alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities (e.g., humanities are covered in 1990, social sciences in 1991).Over 60% of records contain evaluative annotations. The online version contains preliminary editions of  volumes 57-60 that have not yet been published in print.
  • 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. Resources in the Homeland Security Digital Library cover a wide range of homeland security topics and are carefully selected and evaluated by a team of librarians and content specialists.Sources include, but are not limited to: Federal, state and local governments; International governments and institutions; Nonprofit organizations and private sector entities; Think tanks, research centers, colleges and universities.
  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) Publications
    Searchable index of IMF working papers, the World Economic Outlook, annual reports, the IMF Survey, Research Bulletin, country reports, and other publications. Most are available in PDF format for online reading or printing.
  • iPOLL
    iPOLL's online database contains survey results from academic, commercial and media survey organizations. iPOLL is a source for US nationwide public opinion. A full-text retrieval system, iPOLL is organized at the question-level providing the tools to sift through nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys since 1935.
  • JSTOR
    JSTOR provides digital versions of the backfiles of major scholarly journals. Primarily an archival collection, JSTOR does not provide access to the most recent 3-5 years of content for most titles.
  • Latin Americanist Research Resources Pilot Project
    The Latin Americanist Research Resources Project database indexes articles in over 400 social science and humanities journals published in south and central America. The full-text of articles is available via interlibrary loan. The service also includes a Digital Collection of Mexican and Argentine Presidential Messages.
  • Military & Government Collection
  • PAIS International
    PAIS indexes a wide range of literature on politics worldwide, public affairs, current events, international relations, public administration, marine policy, law and related topics.
  • Political Risk Yearbook
    Political Risk Yearbook forecasts the risk of doing business in 100 countries. Each includes comments and analysis on recent events, profiles of key political players, and wide-ranging forecast scenarios, as well as basic historical and political background and data on the government, political entities, the environment, and the economy, including key sectors.
  • Polling The Nations
    The ultimate resource for polling information is Polling the Nations with more than 400,000 questions including the work of 700 polling organizations. Each question in international, state, local and special polls is listed under one of 4,500 topics.Polling the Nations is the most comprehensive collection of public opinion, with information from not only in the United States but also more than 90 countries around the world. The database includes the full text of the questions and responses covering a broad range of issues. Polling the Nations began in 1981 as a database of American Public Opinion Index. Over the years the database expanded to include surveys from more than 90 other countries in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Africa, and Asia in an electronic format. Polling the Nations has collected more than 500,000 questions from an amazing array of sources. There are 5000 topics in the Polling the Nations database. No other source even approaches this number. The subjects cover myriad issues such as gun control, abortion, government, women, race relations, the economy and children. In addition to these recurring themes, episodic events such as the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 vote count in Florida and the September 11 attacks are added in a timely fashion.
  • POPLINE
    A population/demography studies database of primarily English language research in journals, monographs, technical reports, and unpublished works.
  • Project MUSE - Premium Collection
    Project Muse provides access to the full-text of over 40 of the Johns Hopkins University Press's scholarly journals. Dates of coverage vary.In general, Literary Theory & American Studies journals begin with the 1995 volume, while most others start with 1996. New issues of these journals are placed online in advance of the print version.Readers may search the full-text of individual journals to find a specific author, subject or title, and/or search the full-text of all journals in the collection. Among Muse features are hypertext links in the tables of contents, endnotes, author biographies, illustrations and, the option to create online reference 'shelves' or electronic syllabi.
  • ProQuest Congressional
    Provides indexing and selected full-text access to current and historical legislative information from the United States Congress including hearings, bills, laws, reports and other publications.
  • ProQuest Research Library
    ProQuest Research Library provides in-depth coverage of the top 150 core academic subject, including 5,060 titles -over 3,600 in full text- from 1971 forward. It features a highly-respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers.
  • Public Administration Abstracts
    Includes 60,000 bibliographic records covering areas related to public administration, including public administration theory, and other areas of relevance to the discipline.
  • Risk Abstracts
    Experts define risk as a combination of the magnitude and probability of adverse effects. Risk Abstracts indexes the interdisciplinary journal literature centered on the identification and alleviation of risk in today's world.Published in association with the Institute for Risk Research at the University of Waterloo, Risk Abstracts encompasses risk arising from industrial, technological, environmental, and other sources, with an emphasis on assessment and management of risk. The journal includes occasional articles on topics of significant interest. The broad, multidisciplinary coverage of risk-related concerns ranges from public and environmental health to social issues and psychological aspects.This database is a subfile of the Environmental Science and Pollution Management Database.
  • Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
    SSRN is an interdisciplinary Open Access database offering abstracts and full articles at various stages of publication, including Preprint, In Review, and completed Peer Review. Create a free account to share your own work, or just browse and download material.
  • United Nations Treaty Collection
    United Nations Treaty Collection contains the text of international agreements registered with the United Nations since 1946 and information on the status of the registered treaties.
  • World Fact Book: CIA
    This CIA database provides information on all countries of the world regarding their governments, economies, communications, transportations ,militaries, transnational matters, etc.
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
    Worldwide Political Science Abstracts indexes journal articles in political science and related areas(international relations, law, public administration, and public policy).

Subject Specialist

  • Adrian Legaspi

    History, Religious Studies, Political Science, International Studies, and Modern Languages & Literatures Librarian

    axl641@miami.edu

    305-284-3257

News Databases

  • Global Newsstream (ProQuest)
    Global Newsstream covers national and leading regional newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Barron's, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Washington Post. International coverage includes The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Jerusalem Post, and El Pais.
  • New York Times via ProQuest (1980-Current)
    Provides national and international news, opinion and commentary.
  • New York Times via ProQuest (1851-2014)
    Cover-to-cover, digitally scanned full page access to backfiles of the New York Times Newspaper 1851 - 2014.
  • Access World News
    Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 1400 U.S. and over 1200 international sources. Each source has its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues.
  • Current Digest of the Chinese Press
    Weekly digest of articles from key Chinese newspapers on such topics as politics, international relations, security, economics, business, public health, environment, education, culture and more.
  • Current Digest of the Russian Press
    Weekly digest that presents a selection of Russian-language press materials translated into English, intended for use in teaching and research.
  • Ethnic NewsWatch
    Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW) is a comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Searchable in both English and Spanish, with titles in both languages and more than 834,000 articles in Spanish, Ethnic NewsWatch provides in-depth coverage of a wide range of current and historical topics easily accessed using free text and fielded searching. Extensive indexing, including unique fields such as Article Type and Ethnic Group.
  • Latin American Newsstream (ProQuest)
    A selection of full-text Latin-American newspapers and newswires covering international and Latin-American regional topics. Includes over 35 Latin American newspaper in Spanish and Portuguese, with some additional content in English. Leading newspapers include: Mural (Mexico), El Norte and Reforma (Mexico), O Globo and Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), La Nacin (Argentina), El Pais (Uruguay), El Nuevo Dia (Puerto Rico).
  • Nexis Uni
    Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
  • Wall Street Journal via ProQuest (1889-2000)
    Cover-to-cover, digitally scanned full page access to the Wall Street Journal 1889 - 2000.

Subject Specialist

  • Adrian Legaspi

    History, Religious Studies, Political Science, International Studies, and Modern Languages & Literatures Librarian

    axl641@miami.edu

    305-284-3257

Statistics, Public Opinion, Datasets

  • EIU Viewpoint (Formerly Economist Intelligence Unit)
    In-depth country analysis and data, including descriptions of the politics, economy, risk, regulation, and business environment of a country. Also includes analysis of global automotive, consumer goods, energy, financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications industries. This service's Data tool can be used to compare economic data across or within countries.
  • Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
    ICPSR is the world's largest archive of research and instructional data in the social sciences. Data collections available for secondary analysis include national opinion polls, attitude surveys, census and economic data.The University of Miami is one of over 500 member colleges and universities, and UM faculty and students can download data and documentation for their own research and instructional purposes.
  • iPOLL
    iPOLL's online database contains survey results from academic, commercial and media survey organizations. iPOLL is a source for US nationwide public opinion. A full-text retrieval system, iPOLL is organized at the question-level providing the tools to sift through nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys since 1935.
  • NationMaster
    Source for statistics derived from CIA World Factbook, OECD, WHO, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO and additional sources. Data presented graphically.
  • OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) iLibrary
    OECD iLibrary contains all the publications and datasets released by OECD, IEA, NEA, OECD Development Centre, PISA, and ITF.
  • PENN World Table
    The Penn World Table is a set of national-accounts data developed and maintained by scholars at the University of Pennsylvania to measure real GDP (per capita) from the corresponding relative price levels across countries and over time.
  • Polling The Nations
    The ultimate resource for polling information is Polling the Nations with more than 400,000 questions including the work of 700 polling organizations. Each question in international, state, local and special polls is listed under one of 4,500 topics.Polling the Nations is the most comprehensive collection of public opinion, with information from not only in the United States but also more than 90 countries around the world. The database includes the full text of the questions and responses covering a broad range of issues. Polling the Nations began in 1981 as a database of American Public Opinion Index. Over the years the database expanded to include surveys from more than 90 other countries in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Africa, and Asia in an electronic format. Polling the Nations has collected more than 500,000 questions from an amazing array of sources. There are 5000 topics in the Polling the Nations database. No other source even approaches this number. The subjects cover myriad issues such as gun control, abortion, government, women, race relations, the economy and children. In addition to these recurring themes, episodic events such as the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 vote count in Florida and the September 11 attacks are added in a timely fashion.
  • SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
    International institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.
  • Statistical Resources Online
    Put out by the Library Network of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, this is a comprehensive source for statistical data of all kinds.
  • UN Data
    Simple single-entry point for a variety of statistical resources including those from United Nations Organizations such as FAO, UNESCO, ILO, WHO, UNDP, ITU, UNHCR, and more.
  • UNHCR Statistical Online Population Database
    Provides data and trends on the "Population of concern to UNHCR": refugees, asylum-seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) protected/assisted by UNHCR, returned IDPs, stateless persons, and others of concern to UNHCR, in more than 150 countries.
  • World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision
    From United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Many key demographic indicators in self-sorting, customizable tables, going back in time and projected into the future.
  • Global Bilateral Migration Database (World Bank)
    Global matrices of bilateral migrant stocks spanning the period 1960-2000, disaggregated by gender and based primarily on the foreign-born concept are presented.

Subject Specialist

  • Adrian Legaspi

    History, Religious Studies, Political Science, International Studies, and Modern Languages & Literatures Librarian

    axl641@miami.edu

    305-284-3257

POL Course Guides

Subject Specialist

  • Adrian Legaspi

    History, Religious Studies, Political Science, International Studies, and Modern Languages & Literatures Librarian

    axl641@miami.edu

    305-284-3257