International Studies

The following is a selected list of resources for starting research in International Studies. While the emphasis of this guide is on international development, the resources may be of use for many topics. For further assistance, contact Tom Stave at tstave@uoregon.edu or Yen Tran at yentran@uoregon.edu.

Other international studies guides:

• Country Profiles (links to IGO and NGO websites)
• African Studies
• Canadian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• European Union
• Latin American Studies

Starting Your Research

Yearbooks can help you identify recent events and trends, and current information on individual countries.

• Background Notes.  U.S. Department of State.
• BBC Country Profiles.
• Britannica Book of the Year. [REF AE5.E364] See the "World Affairs" and "World Data" sections for current country data.
• Europa World Plus provides detailed information on the recent history of each world country.
• European Yearbook. [DOCS REF JX1995.A5] Accounts of the year's activities of major European IGOs.
• Human Development Report. UN Development Programme. [DOCS REF HD72.H85]
• SIPRI Yearbook: World Armaments and Disarmament. [REF UA10.S69a]
• Statesman's Yearbook: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World. [REF JA51.S7]
• World Development Report. World Bank. [DOCS REF HC59.7.W659] Annual issues with rotating themes, such as poverty. Includes: "Selected World Development Indicators".
• World Factbook (CIA). Current data on each world country, updated annually.
• Yearbook of the United Nations. [DOCS REF JX1977.A37Y4]

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Finding Articles

To look for articles in journals, newspapers, or magazines, you will need to start with an index. An index will allow you to look by subject or a few keywords which describe your topic or by author.

Comprehensive index for science and social science articles.

• Academic Search Premier
  Interdisciplinary database with indexing for more than 8,000 periodicals, including full text for articles in 4,500 journals.
• Alternative Press Index
  Articles in over 200 alternative domestic and international publications dealing with cultural, economic, political & social change.
•  Anthropology Plus
  Indexes articles and essays in all areas of anthropology and archaeology, from the 19th century to the present.
• ATLA Religion database indexes approximately 600 religious studies periodicals and multi-author books, with coverage back to 1949. The full text of about 40 religious journals is included in the database.
• Business Source Complete
  Indexing for articles in over 7,000 business-related journals, including full text for over 3000 titles.
• GEOBASE
  Major indexing service for geographic literature, including all the abstracts from International Development Abstracts since 1980.
• Google Scholar.  Be sure to use the link provided here to enable "FindText" to access the full text of the articles found through Google Scholar.
• Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS).
  References to journal articles, books, proceedings, and government documents in the area of public affairs.
• SocAbstracts
  Index to research in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
• Web of Science
  Comprehensive index for science and social science articles
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.
  Articles in Political Science and related fields, including international relations.

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Finding Books and Government Publications

• UO Library Catalog
  Identify books by topic, title or author; or identify journals and magazines owned by the UO Library. To find books ABOUT an organization or country, use a Subject or Keyword search; to find books BY an organization or by the government of a country, use an Author search.
• UO WorldCat UO Libraries, Summit, and WorldCat in a single search.
• Summit Union Catalog
  Quick turnaround loans of books from 35 academic libraries in the Northwest.
• WorldCat
  Access to holdings of 60,000 libraries worldwide. Request items using Interlibrary Loan feature.
• UNBISNET United Nations Bibliographic Information System.
  Comprehensive access to documents and speeches of the United Nations and its subordinate bodies, 1979-date. Many are full-text, and others may be found in the Document Center's UN collection.
• Official Documents of the United Nations (ODS).
  ODS covers all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993. Resolutions are available from 1946.
• UN Member States: On the Record. 
  Search for individual countries in multiple UN databases. Contents include major speeches, resolutions sponsored, and country reports on performance under various human rights conventions. 
• UN-I-QUE database.  Search by keyword for basic UN documents documents.  Example: "women Colombia".
• Constitutions of the Countries of the World
• Treaties and International Agreements Online
• Legal resources of foreign countries.
• DEC: USAID's Development Experience Clearinghouse.
  130,000 development documents produced for or by the US Agency for International Development. 25,000 are available full-text; check with Document Center about access to others.

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Statistics and databases

• OECD International Development Statistics: Statistics on bilateral and multilateral aid flows, which may be searched by donor and recipient, as well as by theme and type of aid.
• Aid Statistics--Data and Databases.  OECD aid flow datasets for downloading.
• AidData: Tracking Development Finance.  Search individual projects by donor (both bilateral and multilateral), recipient, purpose, and type of aid.
• Country Statistical Yearbooks.  University of Wisconsin Libraries collection of links to official statistical yearbooks.
• International Statistics--Research Guide (Pennsylvania State University)
  Links to major sources of statistical data on foreign countries.
• Statistical Agencies (International) (Census Bureau) and National Statistical Systems (UN)
  Links to the statistical agencies of most foreign governments and many IGOs.
• International Documents:foreign governments (Northwestern University).
  Links to official websites of foreign governments, many with statistical information.
• International Data Base (IDB)
  U.S. Census Bureau's data bank of demographic and socio-economic data for 227 countries.
• UN Statistical Databases
  Portal to United Nations statistical databases.
• UNdata Selected series from numerous specialized international data sources for all available countries and areas.
• Country Environmental Factsheets (compiled by the World Bank from diverse sources).
• World Development Indicators. World Bank. 800 development indicators for 152 economies, and basic data for another 55 economies.
• World Bank Data.  7000 indicators for world countries, to view or download.
• Country Profiles and International Human Development Indicators.  From UNDP.
• StatPlanet.  Geographic and graphing visualization site for country-level data, including opportunities to create custom interactive maps with imported data.
• Gap Minder data.  Trend data for hundreds of demographic, social, economic and environmental indicators for world nations.
• National statistical yearbooks. [DOC REF Foreign Countries section]. The current issue of the official statistical yearbooks for many countries are in this section.
• FAOSTAT.  Data relating to food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries for 200 countries.
• International Labour Organization (ILO) LABORSTA labor statistics database.
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics.  International educational, scientific, and cultural statistics.
• World Population Data Sheet.  The Population Research Bureau's source of population and other demographic indicators.  Search by country or topic.
• WHO's Global Health Observatory.  Health indicators beginning with 1990, by country or topic.

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News and analysis

• Lexis-Nexis: Academic
  Lexis-Nexis: Academic includes the full text of many international newspapers. Click on "News" tab, then select "Newspapers and wires", then "Non-US Newspapers and Wires". Enter search terms and click on "Search".  OR click on "All news", then filter by country before searching.  OR click on "All news" and select a particular source (e.g., "El Pais") from the "Select Source" box.
• Newspaper Source
  This searchable database includes the full text of twenty international newspapers.
• World News Connection
  Compiled by a CIA agency from thousands of non-U.S. print and broadcast media sources. Covers significant socioeconomic, political, scientific, technical, and environmental issues and events since 1996.
• BBC Monitoring International Reports (news and opinion gathered from the press of many countries).  Start with Lexis-Nexis Academic. Click on the "News" tab, and select "All News". Type your search terms in the "Search For" box. In the "By Source Title" box, type "BBC Monitoring International". Set your date parameters. Click "Search".
• BBC Country Profiles.  Includes links to major media webpages.  Use "Media" tab.
• Google News.  You can specify a country or region for your news sources.  At the bottom of the page, click on "Other News Editions", and choose from the list.
• Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).  The premier competitive intelligence service, IEU provides current analyses of economic and political trends and events in all world countries.
• News Sources. Elizabethtown College's links to international newspaper metasites.
• List of Newspapers.  Claims to be the largest gateway to international newspaper websites.
• AllYouCanRead.com.  Another set of links to international newspaper websites.
• Newspaperindex.com.  Yet another.
• AllAfrica.  Current news from 100 African newspapers.
• Public Broadcasting (Wikipedia article).  This page contains links to separate articles on public broadcasting sites in several dozen countries; those articles have links to the broadcasting sites themselves.
• Arab World and other Middle East News Sources.
• Middle East Media Research Institute. Selected current news stories from print, broadcast media and blogs.

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Organizations and other Web Resources

• CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Oline).
  Foreign affairs-related full-text working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences.
• ELDIS: Electronic Development and Environment Information System.
  Online documents on development topics from thousands of sources, available via the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the U. of Sussex.
• British Library for Development Studies
  Catalog of the holdings of the library at the Institute for Development Studies.
• Directory of Development Organizations.  65,000 organizations by region and country.
• Country Profiles research guide.  UO Libraries links to country profiles from major IGOs, NGO's and media sources.
• Global Road Warrior.  For 175 countries: business culture, communications, demographics, money and banking, points of interest, security, society and culture, tips for businesswomen, transportation, and travel essentials.
• Kiss, Bow and Shake Hands.  Guidance for culturally appropriate dealings in 90 countries.
• IGO Search. Search the websites of over 3000 intergovernmental organizations.
• International Think Tanks (Harvard list).  Custom Google search is possible across all 250 organizations.
• Think Tank Directory of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.  Search or browse by country.
• Think tanks: NIRA's World Directory of Think Tanks; list by country.
• "International Studies Resources on the Internet". Elizabethtown College's comprehensive site for international studies, including subject-organized links, and links to IGO and NGO sites and news sources.
• International Organizations links (at Northwestern University): Links to IGOs and official web sites of foreign governments.
• Worldwide NGO Directory. 
• Nongovernmental Organizations. Search the websites of over 1000 international NGOs.
• ELDIS Google Development Websearch.  Search 4000 development-focused websites.
• Portals to the World Links to authoritative, in-depth information about the nations of the world, selected by Library of Congress Area Specialists. (Temporarily down 9/16/10 for review.)
• Country domain extensions Use these extensions to restrict a Google (or other search engine) search to sources from a particular country.