LibGuides: Political Science: Home

Search Tip: Roger is UC San Diego's Library catalog. Use it to find whether we own books, journals, films, maps, documents, etc. Will not return results for individual journal articles.

	Books, Journals, Dissertations, Conference Proceedings...
My Library Account Search Roger by Title, Author, etc.

While the Library is closed and we have no access to our own print collection, UC San Diego users will have access to scanned copies of books owned by the University of California Libraries that were deposited in HathiTrust, The HathiTrust.org Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) has opened up copyrighted material in the HathiTrust digital library to member institutions with copies of those items in their physical collections. Millions of digitized books available through HathiTrust which are also in UC libraries’ collections are now available online to UC students, faculty, and staff. Use your UC credentials to login to the HathiTrust Digital Library, and then check-out in copyright books for online reading access for renewable one-hour loans. You can also still, as before, read and download public domain books at will.

HathiTrust
Partnership of academic and research organizations offering a collection of millions of digitized materials from libraries around the world, include the UC San Diego Library. Full text is available for many but not all items - you can restrict your search to full text items.

Search Tip: Melvyl now also includes citations to articles from many (but definitely not all) of UC San Diego's article databases.

Melvyl (WorldCat Discovery)
The MELVYL Catalog combines the holdings of all UC Library catalogs (it also includes WorldCat) and includes books, government documents, journals and select individual articles. Use the Request button to ask for books from another UC library. Items from these libraries arrive within 2-4 days.

Best Bets for Political Science Articles

Read today's New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post via Factiva

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
1975-present. Research within the political science discipline and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. Use the UC-eLinks button to find full text, print, and/or request the item from another library.
Oxford Bibliographies: Political Science
Topical bibliographies of current articles on key topics in political science written by academic experts.
PAIS International (Public Affairs Information Service)
1972-present. Lists print and electronic articles, books, and government publications on issues of public policy, including politics, government, economy, marine policy, law.
ProQuest - All Databases
Select and search across multiple databases we license from ProQuest. Most of these databases index--and in some cases provide full text access--of journals in all subject areas, along with indexing books, book chapters, dissertations and other sources. You can also add some non-journal databases to your search, like Dissertations & Theses and several major newspapers (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc). However, a few ProQuest products, such as Congressional, Statistical Abstracts of the World, and Statistical Insight, are not included here and must be searched separately.
EBSCO - All Databases
Select and search across multiple databases we license from EBSCO, including Academic Search Complete. These databases index journals and magazines--and in many cases provide full text access--in all subject areas in the social sciences, arts and humanities, and science and engineering. Additional sources like newspapers, books and book chapters are also indexed in some of these databases.
Dimensions
Dimensions is a linked research data platform, including information on publications, research funding, patents and clinical trials - all on an international scale. Dimensions is designed to help anyone involved in research to gain better knowledge about activity in their research area or institution, and how this is changing over time.

Some examples of the ways in which Dimensions can be used include -
• Discovery of the latest publications, awarded grant funding, clinical trials or patents on any topic of interest, worldwide.
• Benchmarking of research organizations, funders, publications or researchers in a particular topic, or across all research activity.
• Identification of new sources of research funding for future funding applications
• Clear and unbiased analysis of the research activity at our own organization, and how this is changing over time.
Web of Science
Indexes over 18,000 journals in all subjects (coverage back to 1900 for science and social science journals), as well as 80,000 books and more than 180K conference proceedings. Includes the popular "cited reference search" to identify papers which have cited a previously published work or author. Can also sort by "times cited" and find related articles based on commonly cited works.
JSTOR
Search by subject or browse 2,600+ full-text titles, predominantly scholarly journals and books in social sciences, history, humanities, and science and mathematics, to their earliest issues. Many titles extend as far back as late 19th or early 20th centuries; most recent 3-5 years often not included. JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.

Other favorite resources for Political Scientists

Sage Research Methods
Includes books, reference works and journal articles from across the social sciences research methods, including a large collection of qualitative methods books. The resources cover every aspect of research skills training and can help researchers at all levels through every step of the research process, from coming up with a research question, doing a literature review, planning a project, collecting and analyzing data, and writing up a report, dissertation or thesis. Also included are SRM Cases (stories of how real research projects were conducted) and SRM Datasets (a collection of teaching datasets and instructional guides that give students a chance to learn data analysis by practicing themselves).
CQ Voting and Elections Collection
United States election voting reference works with downloadable elections data. Covers the American voter, to major and minor political parties, actual races for Congress, the Presidency, and governorships. Election data can be downloaded in csv or tsv and earliest date of coverage varies by office: President (national summary: 1789; county detail: 1920); Senate (national summary: 1908; county detail: 1968); Governor (national summary: 1824; county detail: 1967); House (national summary: 1824; district detail: 1968). More details in the CQ Libguide
ProQuest Congressional
Indexes Congressional materials from 1789-present. Includes full text access to U.S. legislative information, including bills and pending legislation, legislative history, hearings, testimony, Congressional Record, CRS Reports, public laws, etc.(For full text of most historic reports and documents, try the U.S. Congressional Serial Set via Readex.)
U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Reports, Documents, and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. (1817-1980)
HeinOnline
Full text of law reviews/legal periodicals plus primary sources such as the Code of Federal Regulations; Federal Register; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS); Treaties and Agreements Library; United States Code; U.S. Attorney General Opinions; U.S. Congressional Documents; U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals; U.S. Federal Legislative History Library; U.S. Statutes at Large; World Constitutions Illustrated. Includes additional databases: National Survey of State Laws; Religion and the Law; Subject Compilations of State Laws; Women and the Law (Peggy); World Treaty Library
Westlaw Campus Research
Full text access to federal and state court cases, laws and regulations; law reviews, legal periodicals, and encyclopedias; European Union legal documents; and legal guides. Also includes some news sources.
Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni contains thousands of full-text sources including newspapers, wires, transcripts, newsletters, magazines, trade journals; also industry news, company information, law reviews, court decisions, statutes. Coverage dates vary. International and U.S. sources. (Previously called Lexis Nexis Academic).
ProQuest Statistical Insight
1973-present. Huge database of citations to statistical publications from U.S. federal and state governments, international agencies, nonprofit and educational institutions, and private publishers including trade and industry groups. Full text of the publication or report is often included, and many tables are downloadable in Excel. Particularly good for demographic and country-level information. Previous name Statistical Universe.
Data-Planet
Provides easy access to statistical data. Data is downloadable in Excel and CSV, and shapefiles when multiple geographies are covered. Sources include: Bombay Stock Exchange, British Bankers' Association, Chicago Board Options, Exchange, China Data Center, D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), Dave Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections, Defense Manpower Data Center, Deutsche Börse Group, Dow Jones, Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI), Eurostat, FTSE Group, HSI Services Limited (Hong Kong), International Monetary Fund, London Bullion Market Association , London Platinum & Palladium Market, NASDAQ OMX Group, National Bureau of Economic Research, Nikkei, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Standard & Poor's, World Bank, World Resource Institute, Xignite, and many US Federal agencies. See the Data-Planet Libguide for more detail.
TRAC: Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium
TRAC provides detailed profiles of terrorist groups and vulnerable regions. Also includes articles on ideologies, targets, tactics, and current chatter. For more information, click the "How to Use" link in the database

Contests, prizes, & other opportunities

ICPSR Research Paper Competitions
For undergraduates and masters students (or recent graduates since the previous April 15). Annual deadline around January 31.