Political Science 

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Items marked are available only to UCSB students, faculty, and staff from off campus.

The following databases are the best sources for scholarly articles and other resources in the field of political science:

• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  • Journal article citations and abstracts for political science and related disciplines, including international relations, law, public administration and public policy.
  • Coverage is 1975 to present.
• PAIS International and PAIS Archive
  • Provides international coverage of materials in government, international relations, legislation, political science, statistics and related areas, with citations to journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material and more. Newspapers and newsletters are not indexed.
  • Coverage is 1915 to present.

Other databases that index political science research resources include:

• Academic Search Complete
  
  • A scholarly, multi-disciplinary database that provides access to articles in journals and magazines, as well as citations to books, reports and other library research materials.
  • Most coverage is 1984 to present, but selected magazines are indexed as far back as 1865.
• Access UN
  • Provides access to current and retrospective United Nations documents and publications.
  • Coverage is from 1945 to present.
• Alternative Press Index and Alternative Press Index Archive
  
  • Covers North American alternative, radical and left publications which report and analyze the practices and theories of cultural, economic, political and social change.
  • Coverage is from 1969.
• America History and Life
  • Citations to articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present day.
  • Coverage is from 1964.
• CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online
  • CIAO is a comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs. It publishes a wide range of scholarship from 1991 on that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects and proceedings from conferences.
  • Coverage is 1991 to present.
• Declassified Documents Reference System
  • Electronic copies of declassified documents from the U.S. presidential libraries, including documents from the White House, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and other federal government agencies.
  • Coverage is Post-World War II through the 1970's.
• Digital National Security Archive
  • Covers the most critical world events, countries and U.S. policy decisions from post World War II through the 21st century.
• EconLit
  • The fundamental research tool in economics, EconLit covers the international literature on economics since 1969 and provides bibliographic citations, with selected abstracts, of journal articles, books, dissertations and working papers.
  • Coverage is 1969 to present.
• Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Intelligence Reports
  • EIU profiles and reports provide timely analysis and forecasts of the political, economic social, and business environment in more than 180 countries.
• GPO Access
  • Laws, regulations, reports, data and other U.S. government information - often in full text.
• Historical Abstracts
  • Citations to articles on the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in the database America: History and Life).
  • Covers articles published since 1969.
• The Left Index
  • A guide to the diverse literature of the left, with an emphasis on political, economic, social and culturally engaged scholarship inside and outside academia.
  • Coverage is 1990 to present.
• LexisNexis Academic
  • Full-text access to 6,000 news, business and legal publications. Includes federal and state codes, regulations, court decisions and law review articles.
• LexisNexis Congressional
  • Access to current and historic U.S. Congressional publications and information.
• LexisNexis Statistical
  • Access to statistics from U.S. federal, state, and international government sources.
• NewsBank Access World News
  • Full text of over 600 U.S. and 700 world news sources.
  • Coverage varies with each newspaper title.
• Polling the Nations
  • Index to public opinion polls in the U.S. and 80 other countries.
  • Coverage is 1986 to present.
• Sociological Abstracts
  • Index to articles in sociology and related social sciences.
  • Coverage is 1963 to present.
• Social Sciences Citation Index
  • see the Web of Science (below)
• THOMAS
  • The Library of Congress database of legislative information.
• WorldCat
  • WorldCat contains over 32 million records in all disciplines from approximately 12,000 libraries worldwide.
• UCSB e-Journals
  • Use this link to see if the UCSB Library provides online access to a specific journal; search for the title of the journal (NOT the title of the article within the journal)
  • You can browse the list of UCSB e-Journals ...
    • by category: Social Sciences or
    • by sub-category: Political Science.

One more very useful resource:

• The Web of Science  
  
  • The Web of Science provides access to three important databases: the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975 to present), the Social Sciences Citation Index (1956 to present), and the Science Citation Index (1945 to present).
  • If you want to know who has cited an important article or book since its publication, go to the Web of Science and do a "Cited Reference Search."  Search for the author's last name and first initial, plus the date of publication - no more than this. Don't fill in the "Cited Work" (title) field.

Start with Keywords:

• Keyword searching uses your vocabulary - words that you think best represent your topic. A keyword search looks for matches between your words and words in the titles, abstracts, subjects, etc. of articles included in a Library database.

• Try to think of the different words or phrases that a person writing on your topic might use.  For example, the concept of capital punishment might be expressed using the phrase death penalty.  Enter words that express the same concept, or facet, of your topic on one line of your search screen, separated by the word OR.  In the example below, the phrases are placed in quotation marks to ensure that the database looks for articles that include these exact phrases.
  • Line 1 (Keyword): "capital punishment" OR "death penalty"

• Consider using an Advanced Search screen for complex searches.  This will let you break your topic into its component facets and search for each facet on a separate line of the Advanced Search screen.  For example, if you are looking for information on racial discrimination and the death penalty, you might enter the following:

In the example above, discriminat* will find items that include the words discriminate, discriminating, discrimination, etc.

Follow the Subject Headings:

• In library databases, subjects (sometimes these are called descriptors) are drawn from a controlled vocabulary: the librarian who "catalogs" or "indexes" (creates a database record for) an article selects words or phrases from a list of subjects, choosing one or more subjects that s/he believes best represents what the article is about.
  
  
• When you have a set of results from your keyword search, you can click on the title of an article to see additional information, including what subject terms have been assigned to that article.  If one of the subject terms describes all or part of your topic well, you can click on that subject to find other items in the database that have been assigned that same subject term.  In the example below, you could click on "DISCRIMINATION in capital punishment" to see a list of every other item in the database that has been assigned the same subject.  

UC-eLinks:

• Once you have identified a potential source of information on your topic, you can use UC-eLinks to search for a copy of that item - as an electronic version or in print.
  
  
  
  
• The orange colored-colored UC-eLinks button will check to see if your article is available online.  If it is not online, UC-eLinks will give you a chance to search the UCSB Library catalog for the source of that item (e.g. the journal in which it was published).  If the source is not held in the UCSB Library, you can ask for a copy of the article via Interlibrary Loan.