The Holland/Terrell Libraries contains many resources for students and faculty interested in the discipline of Political Science. If you have any questions not answered on the WSU Libraries website, or would like to request a book, journal, or other resource in this subject area, please contact your subject liaison librarian, Lorena O'English. For questions about the Political Science program, please see WSU's Department of Political Science. The WSU Libraries also has subject webpages for Government Documents and Law.

Library Resources

• Reference Books

  The Holland/New Library's reference section (HOLREF) is on the first floor, behind the Reference Desk. This is a small sampling of the many resources available
  • The Political Risk Yearbook
    HOLREF D 839 W68x
  • Encyclopedia of American Public Policy
    HOLREF JK468.P64 J33 1999
  • World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
    HOLREF JF2011 .W67 1999 (3 vols.)
  • Encyclopedia of Women in American Politics
    HOLREF HQ1236.5.U6 E53 1999
  • The Blackwell Dictionary of Political Science : A User's Guide to its Terms
    HOLREF JA61 .B43 1999
  • Annual Review of Political Science
    Online back to 1998 (WSU Pullman and EDP Only)
    HOLSTACKS JA1 A7 (1986-1990)
  • Politics in America (see also Almanac of American Politics)
    HOLREF JK1010 P64
    
    (Older issues back to 1945 (with gaps) are shelved in HOLSTACKS)
  • Respectfully Quoted : A Dictionary of Quotations from the Library of Congress
    HOLREF PN6081 .R435 1992

• Data Sets

  The primary source for data sets for Washington State University faculty and students is the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. You can download directly from ICPSR to any computer on one of the WSU campuses. For more information about acquiring data files and what machine readable data files are held in the Holland Library, see the Holland Library Data Archive.

Electronic Journals

WSU Libraries list electronic journal holdings in two locations:

1. Electronic journals can be found by doing a title search in the library's catalog, Griffin. Journals that are available electronically will have hypertext links directly to the journal or to the full-text database that contains the journal.
2. You can also search the A-to-Z Electronic Journals List.

    Some major sources of electronic journals for Political Science:

• ScienceDirect
  This service provides access to over 800 journals published by Reed Elsevier, including a number that focus on political science. Coverage is from 1995 to the present. A list of searchable and browsable social science-related journals is available.
• JSTOR
  Includes over 120 journals. Coverage is from the initial publication of the journal to three or five years ago. This three- or five-year "floating wall" ensures that each successive year provides access to one additional year of coverage. Thus this is not the database to use if you are looking for articles published within the last three to five years (actual lag time depends on the particular journal). You can also search across all journals in the JSTOR database. A list of political science-related journals is available.
• ProQuest
  An interdisciplinary database that contains many full-text journal, magazine and newspaper articles.

Internet Links

Political Science Meta-Sites

• Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources
  "[These pages] attempt to offer a gateway to most significant resources relevant to political science." Topics include Area Studies, Elections and Electoral Systems, Political Thought and more.

Professional Associations and Resources

• The American Political Science Association
  
• The American Society for Public Administration
  

American Politics

• Project Vote Smart
  A non-profit and non-partisan voter information organization. Includes information on state and national candidates (including issue positions), congressional voting records and legislative tracking, political issues, and more.
• THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet
  A project of the Library Congress, THOMAS includes information on congressional legislation, committee information, and publications including the full-text of the Congressional Record. This is a great free resource for finding the texts of a bill as it works its way through Congress, and for legislative tracking. See also GPO Access
• Center for American Women and Politics
  "The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) is a university-based research, education and public service center. Its mission is to promote greater understanding and knowledge about women's participation in politics and government and to enhance women's influence and leadership in public life."
• About.com: Conservative Politics U.S. and About.com: Liberal Politics U.S.

Comparative and International

• Europa: The European Union Online
  "Europa is the portal site of the European Union. It provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can also consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion, access the websites of each of the EU institutions and find out about the policies administered by the European Union under the powers devolved to it by the Treaties."
• International Relations and Security Network (From Zurich's Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research)
  Includes publications, the Facts on International Relations and Security Trends (FIRST) Reference Database, the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, extensive links and more.

Political Theory and Political Psychology

• The Center for the Study of Political Psychology (The University of Minnesota)
  "...the Center is dedicated to the establishment of a strong research community for social scientists focused on the theoretical and practical advancement of the field of political psychology."
• The International Society of Political Psychology
  "ISPP's purpose is to facilitate communication across disciplinary, geographic and political boundaries among scholars, concerned individuals in government and public posts, the communications media, and elsewhere who have a scientific interest in the relationship between politics and psychological processes. ISPP seeks to advance the quality of scholarship in political psychology and to increase the usefulness of work in political psychology. "
• Political Science Resources: Political Theory (from the University of Michigan Documents Center)
  Includes a number of useful links to political theory websites, and a partial list of Library of Congress Subject Headings that can be used to find resources in library catalogs.
• Political Theory Daily Review
  Excellent blog on political theory scholarship and issues. Maintained by Alfredo Perez.

Public Policy and Public Administration

• The Public Policy Process (Kathleen Carlisle Fountain, CSU Chico Meriam Library)
  "The Public Policy Process site depicts the life of legislation within the federal government. That life does not end when the President signs a bill into law. Instead, the legislation continues through the regulatory agencies and the courts, often being modified in the process. This process can continue for years as older bills are reauthorized or augmented in Congress, reimplemented by an agency, and challenged anew in the courts."
• Policy Agendas Project of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy
  "The Policy Agendas Project is an ambitious attempt to provide truly comparable measures of policy changes in the United States since the Second World War….The unique contribution of the Policy Agendas Project is in unifying the ability to trace policy trends reliably with the ability to access immediately on-line full texts of source policy documents from linked websites. Our long-run objective is to provide a systematic gateway to a virtual digital policy library through ‘guided search’."
• Political Science Resources on the Web: Think Tanks
• NIRA's World Directory of Think Tanks
• State and Local Government on the Net
• National Center for State Legislatures       NCSL Center for Ethics in Government

Other Resources

• allpolitics (from CNN)
  A website for political news, updated multiple times each day. CNN's WORLD provides international political coverage.
• Junkscience.com

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