Library Research Guide for Government 131:
Introduction to Comparative Politics

URL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/govt131aj.html

Reference Resources for Democracy/Global Politics Finding Books in the Catalog Finding Journal Articles on Democracy/Global Politics Citing Your Sources Research and Reference Help

Reference Resources for Democracy & Global Politics

The selection of reference materials listed below is meant to be representative. It is in no way comprehensive. Browsing the Olin Reference collection will reveal many other useful titles. You can also use Reference Universe, a searchable database of subject encyclopedias, to locate articles on your topic. As always, you are invited to consult a reference librarian for further assistance and ideas.

In Print

• Encyclopedia of Democracy. Edited by Seymour Martin Lipset. 4 vols. Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1995.
  Uris Ref JC423 .E53 1995
  A worldwide survey covering the concepts and practice of democracy.

• Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought. Edited by Paul Barry Clarke and Joe Foweraker. New York: Routledge, 2001.
  Olin Ref JC423 .E54x 2001+
  Contains some 200 entries, referring both to the long-established democracies of North America, Western Europe, and Australasia, and those more recently established in Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa, and Asia. Selected entries with useful analyses and way of thinking about democracy include: coalitions, consensus democracy, deliberative democracy, democratic origins, the future of democracy, justifications for democracy, and more. Lists of further reading are appended to each entry.

• Encyclopedia of Human Rights Issues since 1945. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
  Olin Ref JC571 .L2747x 1999
  Entries on countries, regions, issues, and people who have figured prominently in human rights problems and solutions in the last half of the 20th century.

• Freedom in the World. Annual. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
  Olin Ref JC571 .G25
  An evaluation of the state of global freedom. The annual survey and ratings detail the current health of political rights and civil liberties, country by country, around the world. Published since 1978, the country reports follow the ups and downs of rights and liberties over time.

• Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
  4 vols. Olin Ref JZ1160 .N65x 2002+
  Primary focus is upon the rise of the Great Powers and the course of world civilizations, their formative wars and diplomatic, political and economic relations. But smaller and less powerful regions are covered too, along with how inclusion into the modern state system affected them. Provides maps and suggested readings.

• The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
  In Oxford Reference Online; also Olin Ref JA61 .O95x 2001
  Reflects the changing world with a reassessment of many of the core themes of the previous edition, and new articles on the people, concepts, and events that have shaped the world since the first edition in 1993.

• Political Handbook of the World. Annual. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  Olin Ref JF37 .P76 +
  Excellent politcal background essays on all countries of the world. Information on individual political parties and forms of government. Called Political Handbook and Atlas of the World from 1928 to 1970.

Online

• Library of Congress Country Studies
  Online, full-text versions of books in the Area Handbook Series, prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors.

• Keesing's Record of World Events (Online)
  Forty years of online, full text national news reports on political, diplomatic, and economic affairs. "...sources include publications and websites as well as press releases and information from embassies, governments, high commissions, pressure groups and all major international organizations" translated into English.
  (Print version provides coverage back to 1931; Olin Oversize D410 .K26 +)

Cornell Library Catalog

THE CORNELL LIBRARY CATALOG

You can find materials owned by the Cornell University Library in the Cornell Library Catalog.
(URL: http://catalog.library.cornell.edu/)
The catalog includes books, journals, magazines, newspapers, videotapes, audiotapes, music CDs, CD-ROMs, DVDs, manuscripts, microfilm, microfiche--in short, anything the library owns.

You can search by author, title, subject heading, call number, or journal title. You can also search by keyword--any combination of words in the author, title, subject, contents, and notes fields. Words are combined using the Boolean operators AND, OR, or NOT. You will have an opportunity to practice this searching in class.

This Web-based catalog also allows you to recall or put a hold on items that are currently checked out by other library users. Clicking on the Requests button and logging in allows you to see what you have checked out; you can also renew your books from this page.

For more information about using the catalog, click on the Help button.

Things to remember about the Cornell Library Catalog:

• The online catalog lists the holdings of all twenty Cornell libraries.

• You cannot find journal articles in the catalog. Only the titles of journals, magazines, and newspapers are listed along with the years and volumes that we own. See the next section for more information about finding periodical articles.

Library of Congress Classification Outline
(URL: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html)
Your online guide to the call numbers we use and what they mean.

Finding Journal Articles for Global Politics

• Google Scholar.
  Although still in the beta test stage, Google Scholar provides access to many scholarly journal articles. Remember to look up the journal title in the Cornell Library Catalog if access to the full text of the article is not directly available in Google Scholar.

• Historical Abstracts. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.
  This historical periodical database includes annotated references to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the U.S. and Canada which are covered in "America: History and Life"). Covers over 2000 journals, including historical journals from almost every country and selections of journals in the social sciences and humanities for researchers and students of history.
• International Political Science Abstracts. 1989- .
  International Political Science Abstracts indexes and abstracts articles from scholarly political science journals published throughout the world.

• JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive. 1971 to date.
  (Library Gateway--Find Databases)
  JSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several hundred scholarly journals from their first issue up to the "moving wall". To limit your search political science journals, click on Advanced Search and check the checkbox next to Political Science Journals in the "Disciplines and/or Journals" list. More information about JSTOR.

• LexisNexis Academic Universe. Dates of coverage vary.
  A Web-based database providing access to full text news resources on topics including current and general news back to 1980 more or less. Extensive collections of newspapers from around the world. Include televisions and radio news transcripts. Updated daily.

• ProQuest Research Library. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1986- .
  (Library Gateway--Find Databases)
  Indexes and abstracts over 2400 periodicals ranging from popular magazines, to news sources and scholarly journals. To limit to scholarly journals (more of less) click the "Scholarly journals, including peer-reviewed" checkbox. Then click on " Select multiple databases," clear all selections, and choose Research Library only. Contain most of the journal indexed in Social Sciences Index.

• Social Sciences Index. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1974/75 - .
  (Olin Ref AI3 .S67+) The Social Sciences Index is a print author and subject index to more than 260 of the most important scholarly periodicals in the fields of anthropology, area studies, economics, environmental science, political science, psychology, public administration, sociology, and related subjects. Only 77 social science periodicals were covered by its predecessor, the Social Sciences and Humanities Index. Social Sciences Index covers the primary social science scholarly journals in each discipline.

• World News Connection: WNC.
  A successor to the Daily reports from the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service and the JPRS reports from the Joint Publications Research Service provided through the National Technical Information Service. The material is obtained from non-U.S. open-source political speeches, television programs, radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, periodicals, and books. The content focuses primarily on military, political, environmental, scientific, technical, and socioeconomic issues and events. Under some subscription options, profiling (automated custom-searching) is offered. Full text is available on-line, or relevant articles may be sent to a subscriber's e-mail address.

CITATION STYLES

MLA citation style

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed.) CU Library Reference locations include Olin and Uris Libraries at the reference desks. Z 253 .M68 2003.

MLA citation style (available online in Library Gateway Help)

Modern Language Association of America. MLA Style Manual. 2nd ed. New York: MLA, 1985.(Olin Reference PN147 G444x 1998; also Uris Reference) Although somewhat scholarly in tone, the purpose of the MLA Style Manual is to provide for the researcher, at whatever level, a systematic, consistent format for all forms of citation. In addition, it provides information about proofreading, the use of abbreviations, transliteration and such simple, but not always obvious items, as margin width, pagination, and typeface.

APA citation style

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.) CU Library Reference locations include Africana, ILR, Mann, Olin, and Uris Libraries at call number: BF76.7 .P83x 2001+.

APA citation style (Library Gateway Help)

Managing Information using Bibliographic/Citation Software

RefWorks is a web-based program that allows you to easily collect, manage, and organize bibliographic references by interfacing with databases. RefWorks also interfaces directly with Word, making it easy to import references and incorporate them into your writing, properly formatted according to the style of your choice. For more information and to sign up for an account: http://www.refworks.cornell.edu

EndNote allows you to build your own database of bibliographic references from a variety of resources, including library catalogs and periodical indexes. EndNote interfaces with several standard word processing programs and provides direct connections to resources, making it easy to import references and incorporate them in your writing. EndNote (or RefWorks) is highly recommended for researchers. EndNote workshops are regularly held on campus.

RESEARCH AND REFERENCE HELP

Library Gateway Help

CU Library Catalog Help

Online Chat Reference service: Monday-Friday

Olin Uris Reference e-mail: okuref@cornell.edu

Reference Desk Phone Directory

A research consultation with a reference librarian can be arranged when you need in-depth, personalized research help.