Political Science Subject Guide
LibKey Nomad
Research & Instruction Librarian for Social Sciences & Data Literacy
Catalyst vs. Article Databases
You can search for articles in Catalyst or in research databases.
The pros for searching in Catalyst are that you already are familiar with the user interface and that Catalyst defaults to showing you material to which we have immediate access.
The pros for searching in research databases is that most databases are subject-specific, so your searches are automatically limited to a particular topic. Also, if you are interested in finding materials beyond what is at St. Olaf, the research databases can show you other articles we can acess through Resource Sharing (Interlibrary Loan).
Core Political Science Resources
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Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new windowJournal articles and books in political science and related fields, including international relations, law, and public policy. Links to some full text. Covers materials published 1975-present.
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PAIS Index This link opens in a new windowJournal articles, books, government and international agency documents, statistical directories, and other materials in public policy and public affairs. Covers materials published 1915-present.
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Political Science NetworkPart of the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN).
News & Policy Databases
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Access World News This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from a variety of local news sources. Dates of coverage vary by newspaper.
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BBC Monitoring Library This link opens in a new windowFull-text news coverage from over 150 countries, from state-owned, independent, and clandestine radio, television, press, internet, and news agency sources. Materials in languages other than English are translated. Covers materials published/broadcast 1996-present. Note: An optional, free personal account allows access to additional features (RSS feeds, site preferences, etc.).
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CQ Magazine This link opens in a new windowFull-text reports on acts of the US Congress. Searchable by topic, date, committee, bill number, or keyword. Covers materials published 1983-present.
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Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) This link opens in a new windowFull-text media reports from around the world, including news, interviews, speeches, editorial commentary and other materials. English-language, often in translation. Covers materials published 1941-1996.
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PolicyFile This link opens in a new windowPolicyFile indexes, abstracts, and links directly to current research on virtually every public policy issue, with international coverage from many organizations around the world, as well as in-depth coverage of U.S. domestic policy organizations.
Interdisciplinary Databases
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Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new windowArticles on virtually every topic, drawn from scholarly journals, professional journals, trade magazines, news publications, and lifestyle magazines. Provides full-text access to over half of its 8000+ publications. Covers materials published 1975-present.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new windowFull-text scholarly journals articles in many disciplines. Dates of coverage vary by title, typically from the journal's first issue (sometimes in the eighteenth century or earlier) through about five years ago.
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Google ScholarA free site for searching across scholarly literature. "From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites."
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ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new windowArticles on virtually every topic, drawn from scholarly journals, professional journals, trade magazines, news publications, and lifestyle magazines. Includes 5,000 titles - over 3,500 in full text. Covers materials published 1971-present.
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Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A very powerful and varied database. Use the "citation" feature to check for new citing authors. Coverage from 1900 to present.