Journals and Databases

Peer-Reviewed Journals and Papers

Annual Reviews
Annual Reviews is a non-profit organization that publishes journals which provide reviews and synthesis of current research across nearly all academic disciplines. Its Annual Review of Political Science has been published since 1998 and covers significant developments in areas such as political theory and philosophy, international relations, political economy, public administration, and methodology. Annual reviews since 2020 have been made open access, and some volumes from previous years also freely accessible at https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/polisci.

All Annual Reviews are searchable at https://www.annualreviews.org/ and relevant articles and data concerning politics may also be found in its annual reviews on sociology, law and social science, and economics.

Social Science Research Network
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a database of articles, working papers, reports and conference proceedings that have been published on a wide range of social science topics. This includes hundreds of thousands specifically relating to politics on their Political Science Network at https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/psn/. The SSRN’s papers are searchable and browsable by subject, and predominantly free to access.

The SSRN has an active X account and posts frequently on new research and publications added to its database at @SSRN.

Open Access Journals
Many academic journals are increasingly offering open access options, at least partially or fully.

The Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR) is a searchable database of fully open-access articles and papers on social and political science topics. A project of the Leibnitz Institute for the Social Sciences, the database can be accessed at https://www.gesis.org/en/ssoar/home

Furthermore, some journals in political science are completely open access, meaning all their articles are fully free to access and download. Amongst the most influential are:

· Research and Politics, which publishes peer-reviewed articles on political science and policy analysis across the discipline at https://journals.sagepub.com/home/RAP.

· Policy and Society, which publishes peer-reviewed articles on policy theory and practice around the world at https://academic.oup.com/policyandsociety.

· Policy Design and Practice, which publishes articles on public policy, policy research, public management and governance at https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rpdp20.

· Political Research Exchange, which publishes new research and debate right across politics and international relations at https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/prxx20.

Influential Politics Journals

The following is a list of some of the most prominent peer-reviewed journals in politics and international relations. Though they are not formally open access, some articles may be accessed for free, and most university libraries will offer access to them.

· American Political Science Review (APSR)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review

· American Journal of Political Science (AJPS)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15405907

· Political Analysis
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis

· International Organization
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization

· British Journal of Political Science (BJPS)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science

· International Security
https://direct.mit.edu/isec

· World Politics
https://wpj.princeton.edu/

· Political Psychology
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679221

· European Political Science Review (ESPR)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review

· Perspectives on Politics
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics

International Organizations and Institutes

United Nations

The United Nations produces a vast amount of data across its many agencies and in just about every country. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library collates and categorizes United Nations reports and publications at https://research.un.org, and provides useful guides to conducting research on various international political and economic matters.

The website https://data.un.org is United Nations resource that allows you to search across dozens of databases and millions of records, including those of UN agencies but also international organizations like the International Monetary Fund. Useful UN statistical publications, such as the Statistical Yearbook and Demographic Yearbook, as well as more specific details of data collection and methodology, can be found at the UN Statistics Division at https://unstats.un.org/.

Various United Nations agencies also specialize in producing data and reports on specific areas.

· The International Labor Organization (ILO) publishes data on labor issues such as employment, productivity, income inequality, and wages at https://ilostat.ilo.org

· The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) publishes data on indicators such as food security, nutrition, land use and rural life at https://www.fao.org/faostat.

· The UN Industrial Development Organization collects data on economic areas of life such as mining, manufacturing and heavy industry at http://stat.unido.org/

· The United Nations Development Program specializes in areas like human development, gender, inequality, and poverty at https://hdr.undp.org/

· UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics provides additional reports and data on areas such as literacy, education, youth, science, culture, and communication at https://uis.unesco.org/.

· The World Health Organization provides detailed reports and statistics on global health issues like birth rates, disease, and life expectancy at https://www.who.int/data.

The United Nations and its various agencies are highly active on social media, including @UnitedNations on Instagram and TikTok, and @UN on X. @UNStats on X provides regular updates on new reports and statistical releases by the United Nations.

World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to governments around the world, and closely monitors the state of the global economy. The World Bank hosts an extensive data archive which can be accessed at https://data.worldbank.org/. In addition to individual country data, the World Bank has created a wide range of social and economic indicators in areas such as agriculture and rural development, climate change, debt, gender, and poverty. The World Bank conducts extensive research, much of it focused on the developing world. Thematic research reports and country reports can be accessed at http://www.worldbank.org/en/research. This section of the site has an effective search function which is useful for accessing the large catalogue of material available. Citation information is also provided for each of the publications.

The World Bank is on X and Instagram at @WorldBank, ‏and the account provides regular updates on new research, publications, and data, as does @WorldBankData on X.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental organization of 38 members with high levels of human development that share data and cooperate on policy and governance matters. The OECD database at https://data.oecd.org/ is one of the best regarded in the world, and though it only compiles data on member states, it collects information on a very broad range of policy and political areas, including the economy, environment, energy, science, culture and government.

The OECD Library at https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/ provides another vast free resource, including reports and publications on non-member countries. OECD publications and statistics include detailed public policy analyses on a very diverse range of areas, and collates the research of specialized bodies such as the International Transport Forum and International Energy Agency.

International Parliamentary Union
The International Parliamentary Union (IPU) is a global organization of national parliaments and collects important data on the composition, procedures, operations and nature of legislatures around the world, as well as indicators on areas such as democratic health, legislative trends, and representation of women and minorities. Reports on a wide range of areas concerning legislative politics around the world can be found at https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications.

In addition, the IPU’s database Parline provides extensive data on global legislatures and legislative elections, as well as indicators on areas such as legislative output, parliamentary administration, representation, and operational matters. The data is free to access at https://data.ipu.org/

The IPU is active on X and frequently posts reports and developments regarding international parliamentary matters at @IPUparliament.

Other Resources

· The European Union collects vast amounts of data on its member states and Europe more broadly and compiles many reports, available at https://data.europa.eu/en.

· The RAND Corporation is a think tank that specializes in public policy and governance, with thousands of free-to-access reports at https://www.rand.org/research.html.

· The Stockholm International Peace Institute maintains several respected databases on peace and security issues, available at https://www.sipri.org/databases.

· The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a major global think tank on foreign and defense policy, with thousands of analyses at https://www.csis.org/analysis.

· The Petersen Institute for International Economics is a centrist think tank specializing in political economy and data mapping, available at https://www.piie.com/research.

Survey and Polling Resources

World Values Survey

The World Values Survey (WVS) began collecting data in 1981. This survey of social and political values is conducted in states around the world at regular intervals. Almost 100 countries have been included since data collection began. The World Values Study surveys include about 250 questions and the topics cover economic development, personal wellbeing, political participation, and democratization. One of the key contributions to knowledge of the World Values Survey is the understanding that individual beliefs play an important role in shaping economic development and democratic evolution. World Values Study data has been used extensively by academics and policy makers. A list of publications and information on the paper series published by the research team are provided and provide an invaluable resource for social scientists.

The data can be accessed at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp. The World Values Survey presents its data in three formats: longitudinal, cross sectional and country specific. Users are required to register on the site and asked to cite the data using the acknowledgements listed hereunder.

Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a non-partisan think tank that has collected and published data on a wide range of surveys since 1990. Though traditionally focused on surveys and studies of attitudes in the United States, in recent years Pew has significantly expanded its global operations, publishing hundreds of international surveys and reports annually. Pew specializes in studies of political attitudes and policy, which can be found at https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/politics-policy/. They also maintain a large number of specialized datasets focused on specific themes, such as religious attitudes, political communication, demographic trends and global social attitudes at https://www.pewresearch.org/tools-and-resources/. Pew is notable for its use of graphs and other tools of data visualization.

The Pew Research Center is highly active on social media, posting frequently on both X and Instagram @pewresearch.

European Social Survey
The European Social Survey (ESS) was established in 2001 and has been collecting data on the values, attitudes, and behaviors of Europeans since 2002. The survey methods used are rigorous and the cross-sectional data are collected at two-year intervals. Thirty countries have been included since 2002 but the countries participating in each wave vary. ESS data has been used widely in academic and policy research. A core set of questions are asked of respondents in each wave of the data collection. The topics covered in this section include political participation and interest in politics, social and political trust, social and political values, media consumption and comprehensive socio-demographic information.

ESS data can be downloaded directly at https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/data/. The data are free to use but must be cited appropriately. There is detailed documentation on each wave of the survey and each country dataset in the files and there is also an online data analysis function at https://ess.sikt.no/en/.

Other Resources

· Afrobarometer conducts surveys and research on the public opinion and conditions in Africa, available online at https://www.afrobarometer.org/.

· Arab Barometer is the leading database of surveys and opinion for people in the Arab world, available at https://www.arabbarometer.org/.

· The Eurobarometer provides public opinion surveys and polling from around the European Union at https://europa.eu/eurobarometer

· The International Social Survey Programme is a cross-national collaboration that has produced social science surveys since 1984, available at https://issp.org/.

· Latinobarametro provides public opinion, polling and survey data on those living within Latin America, publicly available at https://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp.

· Gallup is one of the oldest polling organizations, and though specializing in US public opinion, conducts global surveys as well, most available at https://news.gallup.com/.

Scholarly Projects and Datasets

Varieties of Democracy
Varieties of Democracy is a project based at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. It has created one of the largest social science datasets in the world. Data has been collected on more than 450 indicators for 170 countries and data for some countries stretches back to 1900. Expert analysts from across the globe provide the data for the project using a methodology developed by the research team. The data is objective and reliable and provides a global data infrastructure for empirical research across the discipline of politics. The dataset includes indicators covering elections, electoral systems, political parties, gender and politics, leadership, the media, civil society, the courts, deliberation, participation and equality.

Data can be downloaded directly from the site at https://www.v-dem.net/data/ and this link also includes a guide on how to use the data. In addition, the site hosts a comprehensive set of country reports which have been developed using data from the Varieties of Democracy dataset at https://www.v-dem.net/publications/. Further datasets on specific subjects are also available, including the v-party dataset which explores the structures and policy positions of global political parties at https://www.v-dem.net/data/v-party-dataset/.

Center for Systemic Peace
The non-profit Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) and the associated Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR) manage a number of global comparative databases and academic research projects. Most prominent in the Polity data series, which since the 1960s has measured relative levels of democracy and autocracy in the world. The most recent release, Polity V, along with older data from Polity IV, is available at https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html. CSP/INSCR maintain several other prominent comparative and research databases, including the Armed Conflict and Intervention datasets, and the State Fragility Index. These are available at https://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html.

Electoral Integrity Project
The Electoral Integrity Project is led by Prof Pippa Norris and the research teams are based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University. The project seeks to both measure and compare election quality. It has developed the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index which uses an expert survey methodology to evaluate election campaigns, election procedures and legal and political aspects of elections in states around the world. Information on the survey instrument and individual data files are available at https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/pei. Data from the project has been used widely and are especially relevant for policy research on election quality and election administration. Other datasets on subjects like electoral management, political parties, rhetoric, and legislation can be found at https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/data-3. Reports by the project are listed at https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/reports.

Other Resources

· The Uppsala Conflict Data Program has a 40-year history of defining and tracking warfare and armed conflict in the world, available at https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP/

· The Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity is a unique database specializing in economics, trade and industry data that’s visualized at https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/.

· The PPEG Database collects global information on political parties, presidents, elections and governments for more than 70 countries at https://ppeg.wzb.eu/.

· The Comparative Constitutions Project provides data and analysis on global constitutional arrangements, free online at https://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/.

· The Global Terrorism Database provides information on more than two hundred thousand terrorist incidents since 1970 at https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/.

· The Constituency-Level Elections Archive has full results and data for thousands of elections over hundreds of counties available at https://electiondataarchive.org/.

· The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project explores the nature of electoral systems and political behavior across more than 50 countries at https://cses.org/.

· The ParlGov project collects information on parties, cabinets, elections and governments across the developed world with data visualization tools at https://www.parlgov.org/.