Political Science Subject Guide 

Yale University Library: International Collections
Yale Library has rich collections in the areas of:

• Africa
• East Asia
• Latin America
• Near East
• Slavic and East Europe
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• West Europe
• Judaica.

Each collection's site includes descriptions of its print collections and links to online resources, including news resources and country-specific data and information. Contact staff in each collection for research assistance.

Annual Review of Political Science
(from here, can access Annual Reviews in other disciplines)

Annual Reviews synthesize the research literature and identify the principal contributions in a particular field. Editorial committees comprised of the most distinguished scholars in the discipline select all topics for review, and the articles are written by authors who are recognized experts in the field.

Search databases to cast a wide net for journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference reports, government documents, and other materials. Databases provide citations and sometimes full text (or links to possible sources of full text – look for the Yale Links button in the search results).

From the library's Databases & Article Searching page, you can

• browse the A-Z list of databases
• search by database title
• click “Other Options” tab and search “Any Word” to find relevant databases (e.g. search for “middle east”).

CSA Illumina
Single search of several databases, including:
IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences)
PAIS International
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
and more.
Use the “descriptors” (i.e., subject headings) to focus searches or launch new searches—but note that descriptors may vary from database to database. Use the Thesaurus (under the Search Tools tab) to find database-specific descriptors.

International Political Science Abstracts
Use “Index” of “Subject Terms” to find exact subject terminology. Use “narrow results by subject” (on left side of results screen) to refine search results; or click on title of a search result to see its subject terms, and then click a subject to launch a new search.

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO)
Includes full text of working papers from university research institutes, NGO occasional papers series, foundation-funded research projects, conference proceedings, books, journals, and policy briefs. Advantage: can search within full text. Disadvantage: lack of subject headings makes it hard to focus.

JSTOR
Full text of journals in a wide range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, history, and area studies. JSTOR’s mission is to provide a trusted archive of scholarly journals; it is not a database for current journal issues. There is typically a gap of one to five years between the most recently published journal issue and the back issues available in JSTOR. Useful features: “Articles citing this article” and “Related articles.”

Dissertations and Theses
Search for words in “Citation and abstract” field. To narrow search results, add a “Subject name/code” (e.g., political science) and/or “Index Terms (keywords)”—but note that Index Terms are assigned by dissertation authors, and so are not a consistent, controlled subject vocabulary. (The abstracts often provide richer and more comprehensive terminology than the Index Terms). Many titles published since 1997 are available in full text; for earlier years, use Interlibrary Loan.

UNBISNET (United Nations Bibliographic System)
Indexes United Nations documentation published since 1979, earlier for selected documents; includes the Dag Hammarskjöld Library catalog (which includes many non-UN publications, and so can be a good resource for secondary literature). Use the Thesaurus to determine exact search terms to use in the “Subject(All)” field. Some links to full text are available.

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