Research Guides: Political Science: Home

Introduction

Political science studies at New York University are focused on the theory and practice of politics at the domestic and international levels. Major areas covered in the NYU curriculum include quantitative and formal political analysis, political methodology, American politics, political theory, comparative politics, and international relations. This guide provides a variety of online resources for students and researchers of political science and other related disciplines.

Political Science Subject Databases

Subject-specific databases provide articles and resources solely within a specific discipline. This section lists the best political science databases providing coverage of scholarly literature across all major political science areas and sub-disciplines.

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) This link opens in a new window
Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) is a source for theory and research in international affairs. It includes scholarship, working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, books, journals, case studies for teaching, and policy briefs.
PAIS International This link opens in a new window
PAIS International contains journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies for public affairs, public and social policies, and international relations.
Policy File This link opens in a new window
Policy FIle offers access to U.S. foreign and domestic policy papers and gray literature, with abstracts and links to timely reports, papers, and documents from think tanks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), research institutes, advocacy groups, agencies, and other entities.
ProQuest Political Science This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Political Science gives users access to leading political science and international relations journals. This collection provides the full-text of core titles, many of which are indexed in Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. New to ProQuest Political Science are hundreds of recent, full-text, political science dissertations from U.S. and Canadian universities, as well as thousands of current working papers from the Political Science Research Network.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration.

Scholarly, Multidisciplinary Databases

The following databases offer access to leading scholarly and peer-reviewed academic journals across most academic disciplines. We also introduce you to open access databases containing publications you may be unfamiliar with called working papers. Working papers are scholarly articles in the process of development for submission and publication to scholarly journals. Because working papers are not yet peer-reviewed, their quality can range widely. However, they can still provide you with a wealth of scholarly information on a topic, along with references that can lead you to other useful articles.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a central search for scholarly literature. It covers disciplines and sources, peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to journal articles, users can access book chapters, ebooks, and primary source documents.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) This link opens in a new window
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is composed of a number of specialized research networks in the social sciences. Topics covered by networks include accounting, economics, financial economics, legal scholarship, and management (including negotiation and marketing). The SSRN eLibrary consists of abstracts of scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an electronic paper collection of downloadable full text documents in pdf format.
In order to subscribe to the NYU network one must create an account with their NYU email address. Please note that when accessing through off-site connection you may encounter a login screen which indicates you can 'login anonymously.' If you reach this choose to login anonymously and you will be granted access.

Journals & Articles

Academic, scholarly, and peer-reviewed journals and articles are considered appropriate sources for college-level research and political science writing assignments. However, you might also need to use general magazines and newspaper articles. Here are a few tips when searching for journals and articles:

Start your research with a general database such as ProQuest Central.
For political science articles use a subject database such as ProQuest Political Science.
If your assignment requires the use of scholarly, academic, or peer-reviewed journal articles, use a database such as JSTOR.

General Article Databases

The two largest general academic databases are EBSCOhost and ProQuest Central. Known primarily by their vendor names, EBSCO and ProQuest are aggregators of individual databases that use a single search interface. Each contains a combination of full-text and citation databases and each provides a varied mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, general magazines, and newspaper resources. EBSCO and ProQuest are also multidisciplinary, which means they cover a wide range of subject areas.

EBSCO Discovery Service This link opens in a new window
EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) encompasses articles in databases across many disciplines. Users can locate peer reviewed articles, videos, audio files, images, and more from a range of subjects.

Full download of DRM-protected ebooks requires EBSCO account registration and Adobe Digital Editions.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.