Research Guides: Political Science: Comparative Politics

Introduction

Comparative Politics

Comparative politics is the comparative study of other countries, citizens, different political units either in whole or in part, and analyzes the similarities and differences between those political units. Comparative politics also entails the political study of non-US political thought. Here are a few tips when choosing resources for comparative political research:

Use a subject encyclopedia to research major comparative political theories and concepts.
Use country profiles to locate basic information, facts, and statistics about individual countries.
Search for research articles in a general article database such as EBSCO Discovery.
Use a subject database such as PAIS to locate political-specific articles.

Background Resources

International Encyclopedia of Political Science
The International Encyclopedia of Political Science provides a definitive, comprehensive picture of all aspects of political life, recognizing the theoretical and cultural pluralism of our approaches and including findings from the far corners of the world. The eight volumes cover every field of politics, from political theory and methodology to political sociology, comparative politics, public policies, and international relations.
The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics
The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics focuses on the major theories, concepts, and conclusions that define the field, analyzing the similarities and differences between political units. Entries cover such topics as failed states, grand strategies, soft power, capital punishment, gender and politics, and totalitarianism, as well as countries such as China and Afghanistan.

Country Profiles

This section includes databases that provide detailed profiles of most countries worldwide. Country profiles include basic country facts and figures such as population, capitol cities and so on. They also provide brief summaries of geography, environment, history, current politics and economics.

BBC News Country Profiles
Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions.They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.
CIA World Factbook
Developed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the World Factbook offers updated country profiles providing information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues for 267 world nations. The website provides a comprehensive collection of world maps that can be freely downloaded. Also includes a Guide to Country Comparisons. Categories include, geography, people and society, the economy, communications, transportation and military. Information can be downloaded into data files.

EIU Viewpoint This link opens in a new window
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Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) country analysis and forecasts covers over 200 countries and highlight political, economic and business developments in all significant markets, both established and emerging. Includes access to the "CountryData" and "Market Indicators and Forecasts" modules.
For access to economic statistics, analysis, and forecasts for China's 31 provinces and 292 largest cities, click 'More' in the top right corner.
Europa World Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Europa World Yearbook provides profiles for over 250 countries and territories. Profiles include political and economic information as well as statistics and information on religion, media and press.
Political Risk Yearbook and CountryData This link opens in a new window
Political Risk Yearbook provides political risk reports for the current year for many countries. CountryData allows users to generate exportable tables with political risk rankings and economic indicators for current and historical years, as well as current forecasts, for various countries.
Country Data is available on campus only. Use NYU VPN for off-campus access.

World Bank Country Profiles
Country profiles prepared by World Bank staff are available for 157 nations. Sites provides direct links to the World Bank data catalog for each country along with access to the latest publications, news items, and development topics published by, or related to, World Bank operations.

Statesman's Yearbook Online This link opens in a new window
The Statesman's Yearbook provides information on international affairs, covering key historical events, population, city profiles, social statistics, climate, recent elections, current leaders, defense, international relations, economy, energy and natural resources, industry, international trade, religion, culture, and diplomatic representatives, as well as fact sheets and more.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
Country profiles and information documents prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress.

Key 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 including comparative politics.

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.

Comparative Politics Data Resources

Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of cross-national research among election studies conducted in over fifty states.
Comparative Political Dataset
The "Comparative Political Data Set" (CPDS) is a collection of political and institutional country-level data provided by Prof. Dr. Klaus Armingeon and collaborators at the University of Berne. It consists of annual data for 36 democratic countries for the period of 1960 to 2014 or since their transition to democracy.

Eurostat This link opens in a new window
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, provides statistics at the European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions. Users can bulk download tables and access full metadata and documentation for data that measures indicators across a range of socio-demographic and economic indicators.

The Quality of Government (QOG) Institute
The QOG Institute at the University of Gothenburg studies good governance and corruption on a global scale. QoG provides a range of datasets available for free, and data visualization tools. QoG Standard Dataset contains the most qualitative variables from the Standard Dataset. The QoG Expert Survey is a dataset based on our survey of experts on public administration around the world, available in an individual dataset and an aggregated dataset covering 107 countries.The QoG OECD dataset covers countries who are members of the OECD. The EU Regional Data consists of 450 variables from Eurostat and other sources, covering three levels of European regions - country, major socio-economic regions and basic regions for the application of regional policies.