LibGuides: Political Science: Finding Articles & Databases

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This page contains a list of the top-ranked Political Science Journals, as well as Databases and General Resources. If you're looking for databases, don't forget about the Best Bets on the Getting Started page.

Top Political Science Journals

Here is a list of the top journals in Political Science, ranked by h5-index: "h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2010-2014 have at least h citations each." This is what Google Scholar uses in its rankings.

Databases and General Resources

The following resources contain journal articles and other research materials relating to the study of Political Science. Go to the Best Bets box in the Getting Started tab to find additional resources.

Databases & Journals

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
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Searchable published news, legal, medical and business information.
The news section delivers the full text of international, national and regional newspapers along with wire services, broadcast transcripts, magazines, and non-English language sources. The legal section contains U.S. Federal and state case law, codes, regulations, legal news, law reviews and international legal information. This includes Shepard's Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789. The medical section supplies information from news and medical journals, and provides abstracts to medical news from Medline. The business section includes business news journals, company financial information, SEC filings and reports, and industry and market news.
Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window
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citations 1861-; abstracts 1980-; full text 1997-
Full text of most dissertations produced after 1997; citations and abstracts for others.
Update frequency: Updated quarterly
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses contains over 1.5 million entries, providing citations to North American and European dissertations from 1861 forward, with abstracts from 1980 forward. It also provides citations and abstracts for theses from 1988 forward. Full text of UNLV theses and dissertations available from 1996 to the present. Full text from all other institutions available from 1997 to the present.
HeinOnline Law Journal Library This link opens in a new window
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Online law journals and full text federal legal materials.
HeinOnline is an image-based, fully searchable database made up primarily of law journals. Newer content is not added until the end of a volume year so the most recent issues are likely a year old. Coverage varies by title, but most sources go back to volume one. In addition to journals, it also contains treaties, the federal register, some classic treatises and some federal legislative materials. Subscription to HeinOnline is sponsored by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library.
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
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1770s-present
Full text resources on military subjects.
Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government, this database collects periodicals, academic journals, and other content, including the Department of State's Background Notes on Countries of the World, Country Watch Reviews of selected countries, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, selected congressional testimony, and descriptions of aircraft, motorized equipment, and armament.
Index Islamicus This link opens in a new window
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1906-
Indexes work written about the Middle East and other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere.
Update frequency: annual
Over 3,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.

American History Databases

America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles and books about the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
Scope: U.S. and Canada only
Languages: Abstracts of articles in 40 different languages
This index includes almost 400,000 bibliographic entries from over 2,000 journals published worldwide. Books, media reviews, and dissertations are also covered, and approximately 16,000 entries are added each year. The Get Text button links to online full text when available and offers access to UNLV print collections and document delivery options for books and articles not available online.
U.S. History (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
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1760-
Primary documents, encyclopedia entries, and journal articles about U.S. history.
A collection of primary documents, secondary reference sources, and journal articles covering all areas of U.S. history from pre-colonial times to the present day. It combines more than 1,000 primary documents with coverage found in more than a dozen reference sources, including Scribner's Dictionary of American History and the Dictionary of American Biography.
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1500-1926
Digital library of works written or published in the United States, as well as items printed elsewhere, that document the history of the Americas (North, Central, South and the Caribbean) from 1492 to the mid-1800s.
Primary sources that offer original accounts of exploration, settlement, military actions, Native Americans, westward expansion, European relations with Latin America and more. Based on Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records This link opens in a new window
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1901-2000
Records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and the federal government; includes FBI files on Martin Luther King Jr.

Public Opinion Data - See also the Finding Internet Resources tab and the Data & Statistics Guide.

Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) This link opens in a new window
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The Americas Barometer is an initiative of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). It measures democratic values and behaviors in Latin American nations using public opinion polls of voting-age adults.
Hosted by Vanderbilt University, LAPOP provides access to data on country democratic audits from 2004 forward. Key countries covered are: Ecuador; Bolivia; Costa Rica; Panama; Peru; Guatemala; Columbia; Mexico; Dominican Republic; Paraguay; Chile and El Salvador. Materials are in English or Spanish, and topics covered include voter turnout levels; trust in political systems and institutions, the conduct of elections and information on political participation.

News

US Newsstream This link opens in a new window
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1980s-
Searchable current and recent articles from newspapers, including Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Full text of articles from major national newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, USA Today. Also included are the New York Times Book Review, the New York Times Magazine, and the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
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1959-
Articles, editorials, and reviews from the ethnic, minority, and native press.
Ethnic NewsWatch is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Designed to provide the "other side of the story," ENW titles offer additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream press.

Government Information

Congressional Publications (ProQuest Congressional) This link opens in a new window
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1789-
U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Includes the U.S. Serial Set.
Comprehensive access to U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Additionally, searchers can retrieve CIS Legislative Histories for public laws. Contains an index of congressional publications from 1789 to the present and locate information about members and committees. Statutes at Large and Congressional Indexes from 1789-1969 are included.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
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1801-2000
Bills, reports, correspondence and command papers all highlight Britain's role in the political, social, economic and foreign policy arenas.

Government Information
by Susie Skarl, Urban Affairs Librarian Last Updated Sep 21, 2023 152 views this year

Catalog of US Government publications
The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive information for historical and current publications as well as direct links to the full document, when available.

Political Science

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