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Subject Guide: Political Science: Websites

This guide contains resources for research in the area of political science

Web Sites of Interest

Al Jazeera
​Al Jazeera is an independent international news network covering global and national news stories.

A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation houses the records of the U.S. Congress up to 1875. This online collection consists of a linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Search for biographical information about members of Congress.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public.
ConSource (The Constitutional Sources Project)
The Constitutional Sources Project connects American citizens to the nation's constitutional history by creating a comprehensive, easily searchable, fully-indexed, and freely accessible digital library of historical sources related to the creation, ratification, and amendment of the United States Constitution.
C-SPAN Video Library
The C-SPAN Video Library is an archive and index of the thousands of hours of coverage produced by the network every year. The Video Library records all three C-SPAN networks seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Videos are searchable by date, person, organization, series, location, event type, and tag.

The Encyclopedia of Law & Economics
Attempts to provide a survey of the whole law & economics literature, with a total number of pages of approximately 3,000.
Europeana

Provides access to over 50 million digitized items – books, music, artworks, and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for.
FairVote
FairVote.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group started in 1992 to cover fair voting procedures. Its purpose is to study how voting systems affect participation, representation, and governance, with a view to election reform. The site includes information on instant runoff voting (IRV), proportional representation (PR), cumulative voting, campaign finance, redistricting, third parties, voter turnout, women and representation, race and representation, pending legislation, ballot measures, and voting rights.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) Country Profiles
Collects information from the entire FAO website and provides a fast and reliable way to access country-specific information with no need to search through individual databases and systems. It also includes a direct link to the Country website for in-depth information.
Foreign Affairs Online
A meta-index to sites related to international law, international relations, and U.S. foreign policy. Well organized and annotated, this site is hosted by the Department of Information Technology and Communication at the University of Virginia (Diana Hacker, 2003).
Homeland Security Digital Library

The HSDL is the nation’s premier collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and organizational management.
Human Rights Library by the University of Minnesota
Human rights information of an international scope. This site also includes the Peace Resource Center and documents from the United Nations.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
An international consortium that provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.
Institute for Social Research
"The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is one of the largest and oldest academic survey and social research organizations in the world. Representing the disciplines of psychology, political science, economics, anthropology and public health, ISR research scientists have directed some of the longest-running and most widely cited and utilized studies in the nation."

International Environment Agreements (IEA) Database Project
Attempts to provide a "single source" repository for most information related to International Environment Agreements and the evaluation of their influence. The Database seeks to provide a reliable list of all historic and current IEAs.

Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School
We are a small research, engineering, and editorial group housed at the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY. Our collaborators include publishers, legal scholars, computer scientists, government agencies, and other groups and individuals that promote open access to law, worldwide. We are supported by private donations, corporate sponsorships, and our parent institution, the Cornell Law School.
LSAT: Law School Admission Test
Test dates, deadlines, financial aid information, as well as numerous resources for choosing and applying to a law school are provided at this site. Users may download a sample LSAT exam and a variety of necessary forms. Online registration with a credit card is also available to Internet Explorer and Netscape users. Links to law schools, bar associations, and other legal education sites complete this site presented by the Law School Admission Council.
Library of Congress Country Studies
Online editions of book-length country profiles produced for U.S. diplomats. This site includes substantial information on each nation's culture, history, economy, and political system. It is searchable by topic and country. Be sure to note publication dates for the most current information; some volumes are more than ten years old and may include outdated materials (Diana Hacker, 2003).
National Security Archive
The Web site of a project that has collected the world's largest non-governmental archive of declassified documents, many of them covering controversial issues and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Though many documents are not accessible through the Web site, there are collections of papers called "briefing books" on a variety of foreign affairs topics. The National Security Archive is an independent non-governmental research institute and library at George Washington University (Diana Hacker, 2003).
Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet
A site maintained by the Library of Congress that provides in-depth information on the U.S. Congress. Users can search the site by bill number or keyword to learn about the legislative process, find a state's members of Congress, and access a comprehensive database on current and past legislation. The site also provides a full-text search of the "Congressional Record", a daily record of activity in Congress, and committee information (Diana Hacker, 2003).
United Nations
Offers news releases, virtual tours, documents, and basic information about the United Nations and its bodies. Three different search engines explore a large database and list of links. The site includes a wealth of reports, statistical data, and other information on human rights, international law, peacekeeping missions, and other topics (Diana Hacker, 2003).
University of Michigan Documents Center: Political Science Resources
An enormous series of links related to political science and political theory. Links are annotated, and sponsoring institutions of listed sites are named (Diana Hacker, 2003).
Voting and Registration Data
This site provides statistics from the Current Population Survey on U.S. voting and voter registration by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Projections of the voting-age population by age, race, Hispanic origin, and gender are also provided, as well as historic time series tables from 1964 by race, Hispanic origin, sex, age, region, educational attainment, and labor force.