URLs in this document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly brackets} have been changed. If a replacement link was located, the new URL was added and the link is active; if a new site could not be identified, the broken link was removed.

Netting Political Science -- Finding Resources on the Web

Lucia Snowhill
Social Sciences Collection Coordinator
University of California, Santa Barbara

The primary source material related to Political Science on the Internet has developed rapidly, and adapts well to the nature of politics, in which there are so many perspectives on issues. Currency and ease of access to government information, political party sites, interest group positions on public policy issues, and news sources make the study of politics dynamic. Access to foreign governments and organizations greatly expands the perspective and scope of library collections, providing access to resources never collected, or cancelled through budget cuts. Public policy issues are ripe for unorthodox and "fringe" group webpages, and discretion and evaluation factors become important.

Web sites that are constructed for Political Science lean heavily on American politics, so identifying other areas requires more searching. Some pockets, such as public administration, have fewer resources that others at this point. The interdisciplinary nature of political issues leads the more sophisticated searcher into economics, area studies, philosophy, law, statistical methods and data resources.

Getting Started--Basic Finding Tools

For the beginning collector in Political Science, the Internet offers a few sites that are well organized to show the spectrum of political science resources and subfield interests. Resources below are selected from InfoSurf Information Resources in Political Science ({http://www.library.ucsb.edu/subjects/polisci/politica.html}).

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Search engines that are most useful for identifying primary sites are Yahoo and Magellan because their sites are reviewed and, in the case of Magellan, rated.

Yahoo Government Politics {http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Politics/}
Yahoo Government {http://dir.yahoo.com/government/index.html}
Magellan {http://magellan.excite.com/}

For those constructing their own web pages, these are also useful as examples of organization of information.

American Political Science Association (APSA) Gopher {http://www.apsanet.org/}
A good overall site with links developed for major subfields of the discipline and professional information on various conferences, scholarships, grants, directories, and interest area mailing lists.
American Political Science Association Web Site {http://www.apsanet.org/}
Still under construction, so this is useful as a complement to the APSA gopher site. Currently includes information about the Association related to the 1996 Annual Meeting, membership, personnel service, organized sections of APSA, national APSA office, Association governance, APSA publications listing, grants and fellowships, and the table of contents of PS: Political Science and Politics. Links to other political science sites are not yet developed.
ClarkNet: Government and Politics {http://www.clark.net/pub/lschank/web/polysci.html}
Table of Contents--useful for seeing ways political science is broken down
Political Science Resources {http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/}
Straightforward arrangement of links by major topic areas spanning political science interests with an international scope: government sources, constitutions and treaties, elections and electoral systems, political parties and interest groups, political theory, area studies, local and regional government, international relations, data, journals and news sources, and bibliographic tools.
Political Science Resources on the web {http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/polisci.html}
This University of Michigan Political Science site is acknowledged as one of the most attractively arranged and highly rated Political Science sites. It includes sections for major subfields such as US politics, foreign politics, international relations, political theory, as well as links for methodology, statistics, reference tools, periodicals, professional organizations, area studies, news, and government resources.

Advanced Finding Tools

The vast majority of Political Science information resources relate to American Government and Politics for two reasons. The federal government has moved so aggressively into providing online information resources, and there is very high interest--particularly in this election year--in political issues, candidates and parties. Finding resources on the other subfields of Political Science, requires a little more digging, and not all areas are as well covered as American Politics. Working through resources linked from the megasites above is a very useful start. Performing net searches is perhaps the most effective method for working with other subfields.

American Politics: University of Michigan's United States Politics ({http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psusp.html}) is one of the most comprehensive gopher sites for American politics, covering elections, campaigns, political documents, political parties, political communication, public opinion, interest groups, and data resources. This site is in the process of converting to a web site.
Comparative Politics: A wealth of political and government information can be found by searching under Area Studies. Net searches of "area studies" or specific world regions "Africa"; "Oceania", etc. will yield interdisciplinary sources, go vernment links, and international government information. Western Michigan University's site on Comparative Politics ({http://www.wmich.edu/politics/resources/comp.html}) and Area Studies ({http://www.wmich.edu/politics/resources/areast.html}) are fairly comprehensive and usefully arranged. There are also special regional and topical sites, such as the Political Database of the Americas ({http://pdba.georgetown.edu/}), Lipjohn Election Archives ({http://dodgson.ucsd.edu/lij/}), [and World Constitutions Project ({http://www.econ.uni-hamburg.de/law/index.html}).
International Relations: IR is a complex subfield of Political Science with interests in human rights, security, peace, diplomacy, law, development, trade, foreign policy and area studies. In addition to the comprehensive United Nations (http://www.un.org/) website, IANweb: International Affairs Resources ({http://www.pitt.edu/~ian/ianres.html}) is one of the most frequently referenced website/international affairs, and is nicely arranged for locating resources in the various topic areas related to IR. Links are arranged by source, type of information, and topics such as area studies, economic development, foreign policy, human rights, security, international economy, and peace and conflict resolution. More specialized resources include those such as DiploNet ({http://www.clark.net/pub/diplonet/}), which is a network that focuses on the needs of diplomats in the post cold-war period. Topics include conflict management and resolution, peacemaking, and multilateral diplomacy.
Political Theory: The vast majority of resources consist of electronic text of both classic and modern theorists. A typical site is {Political Theory}. One differently arranged site, however, is Political Theory Resources ({ http://www.artsci.lsu.edu/poli/theoryx.html}). Rather than arranging links by major theorists, as do most other sites in this section do, this site provides about two dozen links to political theory Internet sites. Sections are arranged as general sites (mostly academic institution sites), philosophy, religion and theology, Marxism, anarchy, documentary sources, and miscellaneous sites of interest.
Data Resources: Political scientists rely on data resources for analysis of issues. In addition to the site for the well known ICPSR data archives ({http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/access/index.html}), there are a wealth of specialized data resources. One of the most useful megasites for identifying social sciences data is the UC San Diego's Social Science Data Collection ({http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/}). This site has made links to both US and non-US data resources. Data resources from the federal government, available through GPO Access ({http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html}), the White House ({http://www.whitehouse.gov/}) and Stat-USA (http://www.stat-usa.gov/), for example, are clearly major resources as well.

Keeping Current

There are a wide range of resources for monitoring new Political Science Internet resources--everything from reading any technology/Internet sections of newspapers and magazines, to reviewing specialized newsletters and journals. Interest sections of the American Political Science Association publish newsletters that often contain references to new Internet sites. A few titles that have proven very useful are APSA Political Methodology Section Newsletter, APSA Computers and Multimedia Section Newsletter, PS: Political Science and Politics, and APSA Policy Currents.

Good Internet sites for keeping current are:

Internet Scout Report {http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/ScoutReport/Current/index.html}
What's New on Yahoo {http://dir.yahoo.com/new/}
What's New in WWW Social Sciences Online Newsletter ISSN 1323-9376: {http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/socsci/news.htm}
Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) {http://www.sosig.ac.uk/welcome.html}
What's new in Politics {http://dolphin.gulf.net/whats-new.html}