Other Online Resources
The Internet can be an excellent source for basic
background information, for contemporary news, and for quantitative data relevant to the
study of comparative politics. That said, there is also a lot of bad information available
on the Internet; please be careful out there...! Use the same rigorous standards that are
applied to printed materials in your evaluation of online information.
On this page, you will find links relevant to
comparative politics listed in four major groupings: political science, country background
information, contemporary online news, and country-specific links for countries of
particular interest in POSC 240 this semester.
Click on the heading below to move to the section of
interest to you right now:
POLITICAL SCIENCE | COUNTRY BACKGROUND | NEWS | POSC 240 COUNTRIES
POLITICAL SCIENCE
 | Social
Science Information Gateway
 | http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/
This comprehensive site is maintained by the Economic and Social Research Council, the
largest supporter of social science research in the United Kingdom. This link takes you to
the browsing menu where you can browse resources by subject area in the social sciences or
by geographic region. The politics subject area contains links to a host of political
sites around the world (with a particular emphasis on sites dealing with the U.K. and the
U.S.). In addition to the browsing feature, there is also a search engine for the catalog. |
|
| Social Sciences Data
Collection
| http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/index.html
This site maintained by the University of California, San Diego contains a variety of
economic and political data as well a host of information on other sites that have online
data archives; there is a search engine for this catalog as well as a links page with
thumbnail discussions of the sites. Unfortunately, most of the economic data housed at the
site itself are restricted to UCSD use only. Of particular interest for research in
comparative politics is the link to the Lijphart
Elections Archive that contains electoral laws for many countries and election results
for a growing number of countries. The Lijphart archive has its own elections links page which can take you
to several other fine political sites. |
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| The International Affairs
Network: Virtual Library
| http://www.etown.edu/vl/
This site maintained by Elizabethtown College contains links pages organized by a variety
of subject headings as well as an incomplete list of country headings. The area studies
and subject links are generally more useful than the country links provided. |
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Click on the appropriate link to move within this document:
POLITICAL SCIENCE | COUNTRY BACKGROUND | NEWS | POSC 240 COUNTRIES
COUNTRY BACKGROUND
| CIA
Publications Page
| https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/
This page contains links to online access of public domain CIA reporting. The
CIA Factbook
provides thumbnail physical, economic, & political geographies of every nation-state
in the world. This page also contains links to CIA publications providing international
economic statistics, lists of current political leaders, high quality maps, and a variety
of historical information on the CIA itself. This site is very useful as a preliminary
introduction to countries but not very useful beyond that purpose. |
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| U.S.
Department of State Background Notes
| http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/
The State Department background notes contain some of the basic geographical information
provided in the CIA Factbook but also provide short histories of a few
international organizations as well as reports on most nation-states. This links page hold
links to regions and to IGOs but the regional links take you to links pages for the
country notes for each region. If you click on the publications link on the
image map at the top of the background notes page, you can access a wide variety of
additional State Department reports including such topics as anti-narcotic policy,
counterterrorism, economic policy, and human rights. |
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| Library of Congress
Country Studies
| http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html
This page provides access to the online version of the country studies series conducted
by the U.S. Library of Congress. Just under 100 countries are currently treated in the
site. Each country study has a detailed, hyperlinked table of contents; most of the study
is organized chronologically. This is a good site for finding a fairly comprehensive
online history of many different countries but is cumbersome to read an entire history
and even more burdensome (not to mention wasteful) to print one out. If you want to read
the entire country study, go to the library and check it out! |
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Click on the appropriate link to move within this document:
POLITICAL SCIENCE | COUNTRY BACKGROUND | NEWS | POSC 240 COUNTRIES
NEWS
| Yahoo! online newspapers list
| http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Newspapers/By_Region/Countries/
Back in the hazy past of, say, 1992, people interested in reading foreign newspapers
waited 1 to 2 weeks to read foreign daily newspapers -- that is, if the newspapers were
available at all either in a nearby library or via a (costly) personal subscription. Now,
literally hundreds of daily newspapers around the world are available online before they
hit the streets in newsprint. Increasing numbers of online papers provide 24-hour
updating of major stories. This site, maintained by Yahoo!, provides a comprehensive list
of foreign & domestic newspapers available online. Please take advantage of this
resource in following contemporary events in the countries of special interest to you.
Many newspapers have internal search engines and/or archives with past online editions. |
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| The Economist
| http://www.economist.com/
This is the online site for what many people consider the best international weekly news
magazine in the world, the London-based The Economist. Right now, this site
provides very limited services to those who are not subscribers but it does have a very
useful full-text search engine for issues published in the last few years. You can use
this search engine to identify issues to read in printed copies available in the library.
If you have a keen interest in world affairs, you should consider going to current
periodicals every week and spending some time with The Economist. |
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| CNN's World News Section
| http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/
This site maintained by CNN provides coverage of major news stories from around the world. CNN will occasionally publish background reports on major breaking stories. |
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| New York Times
| http://www.nytimes.com/
This site listed here mainly to encourage you to use the printed version rather than the
online version. The 365-day, full-text search engine is dynamic, but you need to
establish one (free) account to use the site at all and, in turn, a second account to use
the search engine. If you do not browse from a single computer, this is problematic. All
past editions of the newspaper, a printed index, and a searchable database are all
available in Carrier Library. |
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| The Washington Post
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/
In contrast to the New York Times site, this one provides free full-text searches
of the past 14 days' editions. The online version of the newspaper is also a little
easier to use and much quicker to download. The politics and world online sections
provide a host of information on major continuing stories (listed as special reports) as
well as links to other online sources of political news. |
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Click on the appropriate link to move within this document:
POLITICAL SCIENCE | COUNTRY BACKGROUND | NEWS | POSC 240 COUNTRIES
POSC 240 COUNTRIES of INTEREST
| Additional resources for countries of particular interest in POSC 240
this semester:
| BRAZIL
 | http://info.lanic.utexas.edu/la/brazil/
This links page is maintained by the Latin American Studies program at the University of
Texas. It's a great starting place for online information on Brazil and the LANIC site as
a whole is considered by many to the best online resource for Latin American studies in
general. The material is organized by subject & there is also a search engine. |
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| CHINA
| http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/
This Internet guide to China studies is maintained by the University of Heidelberg; they
are currently developing a mirror site in the U.S. that may provided faster response times
once completed. This site has lengthy descriptions of the links provided and has a
full-text search engine. |
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| FRANCE
| http://lotus.libs.uga.edu/erms/wess/
This site on French studies is maintained by the West European specialists section of the
Association of College and Research Libraries. It can by browsed by subject and also has a
search engine. |
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| GERMANY
| http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wess/
This site on German studies is maintained by the West European specialists section of the
Association of College and Research Libraries. It can by browsed by subject but currently
has no search engine. The home page has a useful list of other comprehensive German
studies resources sites (many focus on sites with information in German). |
|
| IRAN
| http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/MiddleEast/Iran.html
This site is maintained by the Middle East studies program at Columbia University. While
the page on Iran is (unfortunately) not currently organized by subject, there is a search
engine for the site as a whole. |
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| ITALY
| http://www.library.yale.edu/wess/italian.html
This site on Italian studies is maintained by the West European
specialists section of the Association of College and Research
Libraries. It can by browsed by subject but currently has no search
engine. Near the bottom of the page there is link to resources
regarding politics and government in Italy. |
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| JAPAN
| http://jguide.stanford.edu/
This site is maintained by Stanford University. It is organized by subject and has a
search engine. A good feature of this site is the hyperlinked description of which sites
discussed at the site are available in multiple languages (particularly useful for those
who do not speak Japanese). |
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| MEXICO
| http://info.lanic.utexas.edu/la/mexico/
This links page is maintained by the Latin American Studies program at the University of
Texas. It's a great starting place for online information on Mexico and the LANIC site as
a whole is considered by many to the best online resource for Latin American studies in
general. The material is organized by subject & there is also a search engine. |
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| NIGERIA
| http://afrika.no/links/Countries/Nigeria/index.html
This site is maintained by the Norwegian Council for Africa. It is organized by subject. A
search engine for the NCA's entire African studies site is currently only available by
returning to the home page for the NCA site. |
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| UNITED KINGDOM
| http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk.htm
This site is maintained by the politics department of the University of Keele. It is a
searchable site with detailed resources for the study of British politics. Links to some
starter sites on the U.K. in general can be found on the bottom of the page. |
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Click on the appropriate link to move within this document:
POLITICAL SCIENCE | COUNTRY BACKGROUND | NEWS | POSC 240 COUNTRIES
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